


Wild Magic

by WinterFlight



Series: Wild Magic [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (mc is a Juris Naturalist), Animagus, Draco's not evil, Elantris, F/M, I changed mc's name, Martial Arts, Philosophical ramblings, Politics, Probably more of Sanderson's work, RWBY - Freeform, References To:, Tesla was a wizard, Wandless Magic, animagi, lycanthropy, more kinds of lycanthropy then werewolves, more that I haven't thought of yet, wandcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2019-01-10
Packaged: 2019-02-05 19:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12800691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterFlight/pseuds/WinterFlight
Summary: Aria Carver* comes from an American family with a long tradition of homeschooling.So when they move to England (Where apparently even the name for Basswood is different), the little wandercrafter wans't expecting to GO to school...And then she did.And Hogwarts is a little less crazy, a bit more terrifying, and way more fascinating than she'd expected.*At the beginning of the story, her last name is different. I might get around to fixing this eventually.





	1. Moving in. also, wall-standing.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoy it! Oh, and if there is any offence taken from this I didn't mean to give it. Fanfic writing is for fun and enjoyment and high-quality writing is more often found in published books. Although if there is a fact that you think might be useful. (whether it be 'you used the wrong form of too'; you put Ginny's room on the wrong floor', or 'you've got your dates all wrong', I'd appreciate it if you could politely point them out for me. thanks!

The new house sat neatly in the middle of no-where. Its nearest neighbours were approximately a mile away.

Which was fine by Aria. She was more interested in exploring the thrills of magic she could sense running through the ground- although admittedly part of that might have just been her siblings flop-running around like dying chickens or a bunch of kids that had been traveling for the past few hours.

Which they had been.

“Okay everyone!” Her mom called. “We still need to bring everything in and unpack before you run out of energy!”

There were a few ‘aww…’s, and a bit more flopping, but mostly just a pause to the screaming.

Aria took her backpack and swung it around into place. It caught in her hair, but she was too tired to worry about it much.

She walked up the porch steps, her feet thumping heavily on the steps. She ran a hand along the railing. Fir. new. Little magical potential. The thoughts formed through the fog in her mind.

She opened the door- redwood, newer than the porch and railing, medium magical potential-  and stepped inside. The smell of fresh wood met her. She took a deep breath, partially hoping that the scent would invigorate her, if only for long enough to get up the stairs.

She opened her eyes. The stairs were right in front of her. To the left was a coat closet and an open room. Another open room was to the right. She opened the coat closet, the folding door rolling smoothly in its newness. Two shelves near the bottom, a closet rod, near the top, some coat pegs around the sides and back. The old house had only had one shelf- and their shoes were constantly piling on top of each other and making a mess. Even with each person having the bare minimum (sandals or other everyday shoes, dress shoes, and snow boots), it was a lot of shoes. This house was so like the old one- and yet, completely different at the same time.

She started up the stairs, her footsteps echoing in the emptiness. The house felt hollow, like a wand missing its core.

That would change quickly.

She could hear her siblings talking as they came closer.

Thirty-three.

Aria frowned for a bit, pausing as she tried to figure out what she’d been multiplying for.

Oh, right.

The number of shoes.

But she had been certain that ten people having three pairs each would be thirty, not thirty three.

Oh well. She was too tired to deal with that riddle.

She reached the top of the stairs in time to hear a ‘thud!’ and a yelp.

“Sorry.” Owen said.

“Yeah right.” Lynn said, “you did that on purpose! I think you broke my foot!”

“It was _not_ on purpose!”

Directly in front of her was a bathroom. To the left was  the master bedroom. The hall went to the right a bit, then there was a bedroom and the hall continued. Aria followed it.

“Guys, stop.” Jacob said.

“He dropped his bag on my foot!”

“It was an accident! It slipped!”

She passed the narrow door that was a linen closet and another bedroom door. There was another bedroom door at the end of the hall, and a door almost as narrow as the one to the  linen closet. She opened it.

“Yeah, it ‘slipped’.” Lyn said bitterly. “I think my foot’s-”

“Broken, yes, I heard. It’s not, you’re fine, keep going. You’re blocking the door.”

“But-”

“Lynn, we’ve been flying for almost two days. I’m tired and would appreciate you not acting like a three year old at least until after I can sleep. Your foot is fine.”

She stepped in and turned to go up the stairs. Her footsteps sounded even louder in the smaller space.

At the top of the stairs was part of the kitchen chimney and two doors, one to each side.

She went in the one to the left.

There were two alcove-y windows at either end of the room, along the slanted roof. Two normal windows were on the flat outside wall across from her, one on either side of the stone chimney in the middle of the wall.

Aside from the scent of new wood and unlived in feeling, it was just like her room before had been. Almost.

She set her bag down and unzipped the main portion. She took out a miniature bed and set it beneath the flat window nearer to the door.

She pulled her wand out of her sleeve- cedar and birch wrapped around each other, unicorn and kirin hair nested in the center- and tapped it against the bed.

“Finite incatatum.” she muttered.

The bed grew to its proper size and weight. The headboard bumped into the roof and pushed the bed back a bit, before the weight settled.

She put her dresser by the foot of the bed, tucked between the foot and the chimney.

Boockshelves went against the inner wall and a desk by the alcove window at the back of the house. A workbench by the front window.

She set up her guzheng next to the bookshelves, seven inches between them where her guitar case went. Her flute cases sat on top of a shelf next to the violin. There was one more case that looked like it housed an instrument, but she didn’t recognise it. It was semi triangular and just a bit too large to hold upright in her lap.

Curious, she opened it. It held a celtic harp. Nineteen strings.

She didn’t remember ever having a harp, but she didn’t think anyone else in their family did, either.

Slightly confused, she set it under the guzheng.

She gathered the popsicle sticks that she’d taped in front of the bookshelves to keep them from spilling their contents and started back downstairs.

Jacob was in the other attic room, setting up his own workspace and bedroom.

She helped Lynn and Emily set up their things in the room at the end of the hall, then Razo and Ammon. Owen was having a bit of trouble canceling all of the charms on each item.

A bed was drifting around in the drafts from the hallway and the dresser was trying to break the floor under its full weight, but ever smaller size.

She canceled the spells and fixed a crack in the side window from an accidental burst of frustrated magic.

She had to do the fixing wandlessly since she didn’t know the actual spell for it. But once she’d been trying desperately to fix her desk and a strand of accidental magic showed her the wandless pattern.

She went the rest of the way downstairs, where her parents were setting up the various rooms there. Her mom was in the kitchen and her dad was in the living room. He resized the piano and looked around, nodding, before moving on to the family room.

Aria looked at the couch next to the wall, by the window. Near the fire. Someone sitting there could watch the fire or the piano. The piano was by the stairs, after the railing gave way to a wall. A rocking chair was next to the fireplace, a coffee table sat in the middle like a queen surrounded by her ladies.

The wall across from the window held a door and a bookshelf with a fogged glass front. It was the library- the family collection of books, separate from any of the children’s collections.

She sat on the piano bench and started to play.

It was horribly out of tune- the resizing had left its mark.

She let her magic roam free.

As she played, the piano started coming more and more into tune. It wasn’t perfect by the time she finished, but it was much better.

She wasn’t a very good pianist- decent, perhaps. But that was all. It was the same with all her instruments- jack-of-all-trades as she was, she did many things but few very well.

She supposed that would come with time.

She went into the family room and held her dad take things to the closet under the stairs for storage in lieu of a proper basement. Although it appeared that the space there had been magicked to be larger within than without, so the space was equivalent.

They ate dinner- packed sandwiches- and then they all trouped up to their beds.

Aria all but passed out in her bed, not bothering to change or brush her teeth.

Sometime in the night she woke up and opened the window before falling back asleep.

*

Aria frowned at the saw, tugging it back.  She yanked it out of the crevice she’d dug it into and glared at it, as if it were entirely the saws fault.

“Trying to cast a killing curse or something?” Jacob asked from the ground.

“No!”

“Sorry, sorry. You alright?”

Aria elected not to answer, instead, ramming the palm of her hand into the branch, ki-yahping as she did.

The branch snapped off and fell until it got caught in some other branches.

“Sure you don’t want help with that?”

Aria clambered down the tree a bit, then kicked the fallen branch away. It hit the ground.

“I’m fine.”

“Alright. Can I take the tree now?”

“Sure.” Aria jumped down and dragged her branch a short ways away. She started hacking the smaller branches off of it with a hatchet, enjoying the feeling of the wood’s magic as it tingled  against her hand.

Sawdust blew form Jacob’s work and hit her in the face.

“Hey!” she turned, shielding her face.

Jacob was busy directing an assembly of axes and saws with his wand.

She rolled her eyes and summoned some safety glasses  before returning to her own work. After removing the smaller branches- which were too small to be of any use to her- she split it along the middle with a combination of her axe and a wedge. The oak’s grain felt nice against her hand. She eyes the four sections of wood before sawing them apart into shorter sections.

“JAAAAAAAAY-CUUUUUUB! AAAAAAAH-RHEEEEEEE-AAAAAAH! MOM SAYS TO  COME-” Owen cut off.

Jacob’s ear twitched.

Aria could almost hear her mom telling Owen off for yelling. She gathered up her wood sections- now what she called wand blanks- and her tools and started walking towards the house as Jacob settled his things into a pile, levitating the entire mass.

“Careful you don’t-” Aria cautioned.

His wand shattered.

“Ack!”

“Too much strain.” Aria shook her head. “I told you…”

“Ow!” Jacob said, shaking his hand. “I didn’t think you meant like that!”

“I said if you put too much strain on the wand it might break.”

“Yeah, but you never said how much strain was too much!”

“I don’t know how much is too much. I kinda feel it, sometimes, but that’s all.” She dusted some wood-chips off of her light gray tunic.

“Yeah thanks. Any splinter-removal spells handy?”

“Nope. want to get a new wand? I have a few that might work for you.”

“Maybe figure out what Owen was yelling about first.”

They put their tools away in the shed- which was home to tools, brooms (far more than they needed) and a few partially finished ‘projects’.

One was a carving that seemed to be unable to decide what exactly it was- a whale, or a baboon.

It was also Ammon’s, so it might have been intended to be a butterfly or a kobold for all Aria knew.

They went inside, where there was a general feeling of ‘get your shoes on’, which was enhanced by Emily saying “Shoes on! Shoes! Shoes on!”.

 _‘Then again, she might be saying that anyway…’_ Aria got her socks and came down to get her shoes, sitting on the piano bench to put them on.

“Where are we going?” She asked, pulling a sock on her left foot.

“We’re going to meet our neighbours.” Her mom said, trying to get Emily to keep one shoe on long enough to get the other one on.

Aria looked up. “What?”

“We’re going to meet our new neighbours. Yes, shoes, keep them _on_ your feet, alright?”

Aria blinked, looking at the wall, absently putting her left shoe on her bare right foot. “Um…” She whispered.

“There we go!” Her mom sighed as Emily finally let her shoes be put on her. She glanced up. “You okay, Aria?”

“Could I maybe… not…” Aria whispered, her fingers now frozen on her shoelaces as she imagined everything that could go so disastrously wrong with meeting new people.

“What?” Her mom asked over Azeal screaming wordlessly at Owen that he didn’t want to go out. Azeal might not have been old enough to speak, but he did know how to get his point across.

“Could I maybe not go?”

No, Aria.” her Mom said. “It’s either this or go with your dad to get all that paperwork finished.”

“Couldn't I meet them later?”

“Aria, you’re not going to be able to continue through life if you can’t meet people properly.”

“Why not? I could be a hermit. I could disappear into the mountains and never see another human being ever again. I’m a witch, I’d be just fine.” Aria gripped her book tightly. She’d much rather continued exploring the similarities and differences between muggle fairy tales and their real counterparts.

“Humans are pack animals, Aria. And anyway, it’s polite to meet your neighbours.”

“Please, mom. Can I meet them after you guys do and tell me about them? Please.”

“Only if you go with your Dad. which requires aparating.”

Aria bit her lip.

“One fear or the other. Pick your poison.” it was a very poor attempt at humor.

“Mom, please!”

“Aria…”

The window shattered and they all jumped.

Her mom fixed the window. “You might want to start trying to restrain your magic. Accidental magic can get very dangerous as you get older, especially if you don’t ty to stop it.”

“Mom, please.”

“Aria, pick one or I’ll pick for you.”

“FineI’llGoWithDad.”

“Okay.”

Her parent’’s glanced at each-other as her mom left.

It was that ‘what can we do?’ look.

“Didn’t know you were that scared of people.”

“I just don’t like meeting people unprepared.” Aria said quietly. Stubbornly. Pleading. Begging.

_‘I’m not that bad… am I?’_

“You also ‘just don’t like’ apparating.”

“I explained that to you. It makes me feel sick. And Jacob splinched off my toe.”

“You tow weren’t supposed to be playing with magic anyway.” But he smiled softly as he said it, to let her know it would be alright. “Ready?”

“No.”

“Will you ever be?”

“Probably not.”

“Alright then.”

“Dad, couldn’t I-”

But then they were disapparating.

Time and space split apart. Time became visible. Images flew past her eyes slowly enough for her to know she’d seen them, but not for her to understand them.

It was nauseating.

Through the miasma and chaos, she could almost see the structure of time. She could almost see the pattern that flowed through the chaos that filled her mind.

Time was irrelevant. Past, present, future- it all disappeared and turned into one mass and she screamed.

Opposites flowed together, harmonizing into one in a way that she almost, but not quite understood. Cold and hot, black and white, they mixed together into a… thing… that she couldn't understand, couldn’t possibly understand.

It was not for mortals to understand.

But, she noticed- as she noticed each time- that good and bad stayed far away from each-other, not participating in the strange dance that confused and blinded her even as it drove her to understand and see.

It was comforting, in a way, to know that even in this bizarre mess, something was constant.

Good and evil were alway opposite, and could never mingle.

She latched onto that though, clinging tightly to it as the strangeness filled all around her, filled _her_ as the laws of physics that she had learned were surpassed by laws beyond her.

She felt rushed even as she felt time slow. As if she were late for something very important. But time.

Had become.

Irelevent.

Irelevent? Or non-existent?

Did it matter?

She pulled herself back from that line of thought and clung back to the one solid, crystallized truth in the mess.

She fell forward onto smooth, cool tile, shaking.

Frost spread out where she touched the floor as her magic, crazed by what she had experienced, tumbled out of her, trying to do _something_ to fix whatever it was that had just happened.

“We’re here.” Her dad said.

She got up, still shaking, trying to steady her breathing.

He flicked his wand at the floor and cleared away her ice. “Ready?”

“No.”

He smiled. “Come on.”

She followed him, still thinking about what she’d experienced, wondering at it, and wondering that no-one else seemed to feel it.

Mostly following her Dad to keep from crashing into a wall or getting lost.

“Did you know that you, Jacob, and Owen caused this move a lot more paperwork?” Her dad asked conversationally.

“No…” She said slowly, “It’s not surprising, though.” She paused. “Why is Bureaucracy?”

“What?”

“Why is Bureaucracy?” She repeated.

“Why is it what?”

“Why does it exist? What’s it for? Everyone hates it. Why does it exist? It’s not like mosquitoes, people made it. Why?”

“To regulate things. Used properly, just to make sure people are following the two laws. But it’s usually expanded to include other laws.”

Aria sighed. “And that’s because power holders want more, but why use bureaucracy? So they can insist they played by the rules? Rule that they made up to begin with? Rule that are generally made so complicated that most people can’t understand them anyway?”

“I guess.” Her dad said. “I’ve never really thought about it too much. Mostly reached that same conclusion. Let me know if you come up with anything else.”

“People are nuts.”

“You’ve already told me that.”

She shrugged. “It’s as true now as it was then. Also, I think most people have actually broken some kind of arbitrary law because it’s nuts and they didn't know it existed. If they wanted, they could punish anyone.”

“There’s actually some speculation on that in some places.”

“I’m going to pretend that made perfect sense and move on. I’ll come back to it later. Maybe.”

He smiled. “Well, if everyone’s broken some law or other, if there’s someone they know is guilty of something really bad but they can’t prove, they can get them on something else, right?”

“Yeah, but if I got someone with political power mad at me they could get me in huge trouble for… I don’t know. Unlicensed something, probably.”

“Are you sure you’re not thinking about that game you played with you cousins?”

“The ‘license the stupidest thing’ game? Maybe. Seriously though, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tried to tax or license breathing. Or wearing clothes and not wearing clothes or having hair or-”

“You can be very cynical.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Politics, though…”

“Can’t live with ‘em, can't live without ‘em?”

“I could live just fine without politics. Sure, I find them fascinating, but the more I learn about it the more I think formalized government isn’t necessary. It’s an insult to intelligence, really.”

“Oh?”

“People should be smart enough to realize that breaking the two laws isn’t going to help anyone.”

“But what about the people who don’t understand that?”

Aria sighed. “You still don’t need a formal government to take care of it. Logic should be able to help clear up most cases, you don’t need lawyers and all that. But… an ethically upright society needs no laws, yet only such a society will properly uphold them. Assuming of course that the laws are ethical.”

“You’re getting into philosophy again.”

“Yes.”

“Just remind me then- which one is morals and which is ethics?”

“Ethics follow a higher law. The two common laws. Morality follows society, which isn’t always right. Morality and social Morés, remember?”

“No, I don’t think you’ve ever had that discussion with me.”

“Oh.”

“Well, here we are.” Her dad knocked on a door.

Someone called them in and they entered.

A man was sitting at a highly polished wooden desk. A filing cabinet sat next to the desk and rolls and stack of parchment sat on the desk- some neatly, some decidedly less so.

“Hello Mr. Hudson.”

“Hello.”

“This is…?”

“My daughter.”

“Hello.” The man said.

Aria whispered a reply.

A name-rod (Or whatever they were called) was peeking out from behind a roll of parchment enough for Aria to read ‘Ingus Lachus, Lycanthrope and An-’.

Sunlight came in brightly through the window, although Aria was fairly certain they were underground.

“So, you need to register two underage Animagi and one Lycanthrope.” Mr. Lachus said, as if he received this need every day.

“Yes.”

“Well, you have the paperwork filled out properly… well, mostly. And the registering animagus does need to be present, even if they’re underage.”

“Are you sure?”

“Euhm… Well, the rules say that an animagus must be present in order to register, and it doesn't say there’s a separate set of rules for underage animagi. I don’t think we’ve ever had to deal with those before, though.”

“Well, Aria’s here, at least. Can we finish her paperwork?”

“Mm? Oh, yes, of course.”

The process was fairly simple. He asked her to transform and checked against the paperwork for any differences, then asked her to change back.

She got a little stuck but only for a few seconds.

“Excellent… You’ll have to bring Mr. Jacob Hudson back later- maybe tomorrow at three? And there’s a slight problem in the paperwork for the Lycanthropy department- we’re really only used to dealing with werewolves, you see…”

Aria went outside to wait for them to finish that mess up.

“Don’t make a mess, alright?” Her dad said.

“Why would I bring a wand here?” She muttered back.

She leaned against the wall and opened her book.

She had just finished the discussion on the sword in the stone when-

“Hello.”

Aira jumped, making a slight ‘ga!’ sound before falling on her side.

Slightly confused, she stood up.

There was a boy standing on the wall, looking at her with a rather startled expression.

_‘No, wait, I’m the one on the wall.’_

“Um… Hi?”

“You’re american.”

“Yes?”

They looked at each-other for a bit.

The boy was pale. It was the easiest way to describe him. Pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes. She guessed he was several inches taller than her, but it was hard to tell since she was standing on the wall- and anyway it didn’t mean much as she was short for her age. He was wearing formal robes, one long to the floor in black and one open robe in deep purple overtop of it. He had a silver-colored belt with a fancy worked clasp and the hem of his robes glinted here and there with hints of silver.

She defied simple summary. She was mostly dark- orangish-skin from her heritage and time outside, black hair was was, for some reason, nearly knee-length and held back on one side by a bit of ribbon and two black and white tail feathers (They were from a falcon, but she doubted he knew that). Her eyes were slightly narrowed as another nod to her strange mixed heritage, but they were also a pale blue that threatened to lose the iris in the whites. She had loose black pants underneath her knee-length tunic. Her belt was sturdy leather with a box clipped at her side, and she’d forgotten to put shoes on properly before her departure. She had on a shoe, and a sock. On different feet.

“Um. What’s your name?” Aria asked awkwardly.

“Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.”

Malfoy. The name echoed in her mind and pulled up memories from books- a wealthy, influential family. Something steeped in politics that she hadn’t really gotten into yet.

“And your name is…?”

“Oh- Aria- Aria Hudson.”

“Do you make a habit of standing on walls? I thought gravitational manipulation was difficult and complex.”

“It was an accident…” She mumbled, looking down at the… wall.

“You accidentally shifted your personal gravity?”

Aria felt the description left something to be desired, but she didn’t comment on it. “People accidentally aparate. That’s complicated too, isn’t it?”

“Accidental apparition usually only happens in moments of extreme stress. Life threatened and whatnot.”

“Most people don’t remember that.” Aria said, sighing a little. “They just kind of accept it.”

“Thank you, I suppose.” He said. “What brings you here?”

“Here, to england, to this building, to this hall in this building, or…?”

“To the ministry of Magic.”

“I’m just… tagging along with my Dad. I guess. What brings you here to the Ministry?”

“The Wizengamot.”

“The what now?”

“The Wizengamot.” He looked at her oddly. “It consists mostly of the heads of noble houses. It also includes the minister of magic, unofficially, and some other honorary members- Dumbledore, most notably.”

“How can someone be an unofficial member of the wizanmacallit?”

“Wizengamot. The minister of magic is not technically a member of the Wizengamot, but must be present for all meetings.”

“Okay. So… why does that bring you?”

“I’m Heir to the ancient and Noble house of Malfoy. My Father, Lord Malfoy, is currently in a meeting. I attend several meetings a year to learn the workings of the wizengamot, but right now they are discussing things ‘too sensitive for underage witches and wizards’ Usually when this happens all present underage Heirs sit in the antechamber and discuss things among ourselves, but I’m the only one today.”

“What’s being an Heir like?”

He told her about being an heir, the politics of the various houses (And the missing state of the only surviving member of house Potter), and a bit of political history (Which she felt he didn’t agree with his father on) before her Dad came out of his meeting.

He looked at her and frowned slightly. “Do I even want to know?” He asked.

“He startled me.” Aria said.

“He startled you? And you displaced gravity? How did… Never mind. I’m not going to worry about that right now. Come on, your mom probably will be wondering where we are if she isn’t still chatting with the neighbours.”

Aria frowned at the floor-that was-the-wall and stepped onto it, letting her magic flow through the previous pattern.

Gravity changed again and she fell a little akwardly onto the proper floor.

“Nice to meet you.” She waved to Draco.

“A pleasure.” he nodded, and she followed her Dad down the hall.

“So, I guess I need to bring Jacob and Owen back tomorrow.”

“Cerealy?”

“Yep.”

“So, what do you think we should make for dinner?”

“Bulgogi, nut bread, and salad?”

“Sure, why not?”

They were an odd family.

Her mom rolled her eyes slightly when she returned from the visiting, but she didn’t complain.

Aria’s siblings were a slightly different matter.

“Why did you put peppers in the salad?” Owen asked, making a face.

“Did you have to make bulgogi? You _know_ I hate soy sauce.” Lyn said, poking at the thinly sliced meat.

“Is this a walnut piece?” Ammon asked, holding up a piece of nut.

“Because they’re good for you, I like soy sauce, and not, It’s a piece of almond.”

“Either eat it now or go to bed and have it for breakfast tomorrow.” their Dad said.

“So, How did it go?”

“Apparently the animagi in question need to be present for registering. How’d it go for you?”

“Our closest neighbours are the Weasleys. They have... How many kids was it, again?”

The responses were scattered.

“Ginny…”

“The Twins...”

“Ron and Percy…”

“Those two that moved out…”

“Bill and Charlie…”

“Seven.”

“That’s almost as many as us.” Aria said quietly, examining a piece of lettuce she was holding firmly captive in her chopsticks.

“Mrs. Weasley is an amazing woman. I’m not sure about Mrs.  Weasley- he was at work, But Mrs. Weasley tells me he works at the ministry in the misuse of muggle artifact office, or whatever they call it.”

“The Twins are a bit like our Razo and Ammon.” Jacob told Aria, sandwiching some bulgogi in his roll with some lettuce and tomato. “But my age. They love switching places with each-other to confuse people- watch out for that.”

“I’ll keep my amulet handy.”

Jacob smiled. “Excellent. Ron’s your age. He seems to be everything you like in a guy- sports focused, despondent, and-”

“Jacob, be nice.” Their mother told them.

“Okay, he can be decent if you don't bring up their financial situation, his ‘rank’ as second youngest, or-”

“I get it.” Aria said, shredding the lettuce with her fork and one of the chopsticks.


	2. hair dye and the neighbours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria accidentally dyes gred and forge's hair, is told about Hogwarts, and estimates the probability of the burrow falling in her house if magic were to suddenly vanish.

 

Aria was meditating on the roof when a silvery, semi-translucent swan flew up to her, slightly golden in the early morning light. It landed on the roof next to her gracefully and said in her dad’s voice

“Aria, would you please come to our room? We need to talk to you about something.” The swan vanished.

Aria sighed, then stood and walked to the edge of the roof that was over her room, swung down from the roof and into her window. She rolled over her bed and started down as quietly as she could while maintaining speed.

A few people had found it funny that her Dad’s patronus and messenger was a swan. The thing was, swans might be beautiful, graceful, and overly romanticized, but they also dealt a terrible blow when they or their family was threatened. His sign was hardly that of a ‘girly man’.

She closed the door to the stairs and walked down the hall to her parent’s room. She knocked on the door, her typical quick three knocks at her shoulder height. Simple as it might sound, it was actually hard to imitate if you were trying to fool someone who knew what they were looking for.

Strangely.

“Come in, Aria.” Her dad called.

She entered. Her mom was holding Azeal and talking very softly to him. Aria wasn’t sure if the baby was awake or not.

Aria perched on the foot of the bed and waited.

“How are your studies going?”

Aria blinked. That wasn’t what she’d been expecting. But it could still very easily circle back to ‘slow down a bit, back down a little, have some more family time’, so she remained wary.

“They’re going well.”

“Good, good.”

Aria’s eyes narrowed slightly, almost imperceptibly. Being parents, they would have noticed it if Azeal hadn’t stirred and made a moaning sound, causing them both to look at him.

He was wrapped in a soft blue blanket with green around the edges, enchanted to keep whoever was wrapped in it at the perfect temperature. He opened his eyes, still the undecided baby blue, and grabbed at his mommy’s finger before closing his eyes again and snuggling a bit closer with a soft sighing sound.

“Is this another ‘spend more time with people’ talk?” Aria asked.

“Not really. We’ve almost given up on that.”

Aria dropped her eyes, examining a swirl in the grain of the wood floor. _I wasn’t trying to stay away from people… it just kind of… happened… I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have…_

“Not Quite, you understand.” her dad said with a smile. “I mean, we could always have you give a familial oath to spend a little more time with us.”

“Not funny, Josiah.” Her mom said.

“Sorry.”

“So… What is this?”

Her parent’s looked at each-other, then back at her.

“We’ve been considering sending you to Hogwarts.”

Aria almost fell off the bed (which, with her current levels of magic acting up, might have resulted in her landing on a ceiling covered in pillows). “What?”

“We were also considering sending you to Ilvermony before the move.” Her mom said.

The room had that soft, strange scent of new babies- a mix of baby powder and a few other things Aria hadn’t identified- though she suspected part of it to be the actual scent of newborns.

“Why?”

“You’re moving beyond what we can help you with. Between getting your siblings to study and where you’re getting to in your studies, we think it might be good for you to go somewhere with full-time teachers who can help you with whatever you need help with. Don’t get me wrong, aria, I’d love to be able to help you with your potions explorations or arithmantic studies, but I don’t have the time with everyone else. And to be honest, I don’t remember as much as I probably should about Arithmancy.” her mom said. “Books are wonderful, but some things you need an actual person helping you with. And I’m afraid I can’t do that for you well enough anymore.”

“Besides, your defence studies are off the charts.”

“They are not.” Aria mumbled. “I was just scheduled to take the standard skill exam three or four years early. That’s not off the charts… and it was just in defence...”

“That’s still impressive.” Her dad said, “Stop selling yourself short. I know we usually don’t like public schools, but they aren’t normal public schools. And if you do decide to go, you might be able to get the help you need to reach your full potential. Plus you’ll be surrounded in people so the odds are you’ll be able to make at least one friend.”

“But if just about everyone in magical Britain goes to Hogwarts, wouldn't the teachers be just as busy with them as you are with my siblings and everything?”

“We’re not sure. You can look into it. If you go and decide you don’t like it we can pull you back out.”

Azeal woke up completely and started crying.

“Think about it.” her mom said.

“The deadline for applications is next Saturday.” Her dad said, standing. “Oh, and Aria?”

“Yes?”

“Please spend more time with your siblings.”

Aria smiled weakly.

“Think about it.” Her mom said again, settling Azeal to nurse.

“Alright.” Aria said, although she wasn’t sure which language it was in.

She hugged her parents and the exited the room, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it and sighed.

_What have I done…? I wasn’t trying to… I never meant for it to go this far… What just…_

Through the door, she heard her parents talking quietly with each-other.

*

Rattan clacked loudly against rattan.

“Hang on!” Aria said, “You’re going to break something!”

“Eh.” Jacob said. “You want to take a break?”

Aria swung her staff at his side. “Nope.”

He blocked, and the clacking continued.

She missed a block and fell backwards, rolling up- careful not to hit her head- and got tangled in her hair. After stepping off it, she blocked another attack blindly and shook her hair behind her shoulders. It was still tangled in her fingers, but not much.

She blocked again and started a counter attack.

“So, you planning on meeting the neighbours anytime soon?” Jacob asked.

“After what Mom told me? Eh.”

“Hey, they’re actually not that bad. A bit nuts, but-”

“Jay, Everyone’s nuts. Or did you miss the- ack!”

Jacob laughed as she shook her hand, dropping her staff against her side.

“If you broke my fingers, so help me…!” She growled.

“Then I’ll fix it.”

“It’ll still hurt!”

“Calm down.”

“Ah… ahrg, I think you did break my thumb.”

“Let me see.”

He pulled out his wand and scanned her hand, casting a temporary holding spell- more a splint than a proper healing. “You  might want to see Mom about that.”

“Later.” She swung her staff back up.

He picked his up. “Ready?”

“ _Shozhak!”_ _begin._

Their sparring continued. Her hair fell in her face again and she growled at it mentally.

“All holds off!” she yelled.

Yelled being a relative term.

Jacob grinned.

Aria let her magic run free- not that she’d been restricting it, but now she aroused it, waking it from the light slumber it had fallen into, and let it flow through her.

Her hair flew back and braided itself and frost spread along the grass as they moved. Runes carved along Jacob’s staff started glowing and each attack carried more force. The knee-high grass snapped underfoot and Aria’s staff was knocked from her hands. She ducked under an attack, rolling to her staff and summoning it to her for the last her inches, swinging back to block another attack, activating her own runes, coating Jacob’s staff in ice at the next contact.

The ice started cracking from his runes. He swung at her back and hit- her block coming a bit too slow- and she stumbled forward, the sharp pain accentuated by the cold. The jelly-legs-jinx didn't help.

But her staff had met his, and the electrical charge from her staff melted the ice and shocked him, making him drop the staff. He summoned it to his hands again in time to block an attack that sent him stumbling through their barrier.

As soon as he stepped back, his form became blurred to her eyes, as if she was suddenly in dire need of glasses. He moved up, and he said something- like his image, his voice was fuzzy- and then touched the runes forming their sparring ring, dismissing them.

The outside world snapped into focus, and two red-headed twins appeared near Jacob.

“Ack!” She said, blinking.

“Hello.” one of them said.

“Aria, Fred and George, the Weasley twins and the family’s principal mischief makers. Twins, this is Aria.”

“Hi.” Aria said, nervously adjusting her grip on her staff, which she held upright against her back. Her other hand started fiddling with her necklace- a thin silver chain with a mostly clear teardrop- shaped pendant hanging from it.

“Hi Aria, you’re Ron’s age, right?”

“Um…”

“Yes, she is. Well, near to it, anyway.”

“Is she as annoying?”

“No.”  
Aria muttered “something...” in gobbledygook. It was the German of magical languages, and it sounded like she might have been cursing or something. It was also surprisingly similar to Klingon, but it was more versatile and had things like adjectives in it. (And to any who ask ‘which dialect of klingon?’ I say: almost all of them. Gobbledygook  is very complex if you take the time for it, although it can be as straightforward as a single dialects ‘nooq ne-h’.)

“Should I put the staffs away, then?” Aria asked.

“Nope. You’re saying hi properly.” Jacob said.

Aria frowned at him slightly. “Hi properly.”

He thwapped her playfully with his staff.

Aria wondered when he’d added the softening charm to his list of runes.

She levitated her staff wandlessly and sent it to the shed.

“You do wandless magic?” one of the twins asked.

“Um. Yes? It’s like accidental magic, really, just… more controlled.”

“Most of the time.” Jacob said. “I mean, there was that one time you froze your entire room with an out-of-control cooling charm.”

“I was trying to make a blizzard.” Aria said defensively. “A lemon flavoured one.”

The twins looked confused.

Aria didn’t blame them.

“Just for clarity of the next thirty seconds,  who’s Fred and who’s George?” Aria asked, blurting the question a bit, tapping the pendant against her cheek slightly.

“I’m Fred, He’s George.” The one on the left said.

As he said it, Aria shifted the pendant up so she could see him through it.

The image wasn’t distorted, as it would have been had it been a normal piece of glass. The edges were a bit blurred,  but the center part was perfectly clear- except for when the twin spoke,  a shiny, fluffy gray thing appeared to tumble out of his mouth and flopped to the ground, sinking in.

Aria frowned slightly, dropping the pendant.

“What?” the twin on the right asked.

“You’re lying and not lying at once.” Aria said to the twin on the left, confused.

“What?” they said in unison.

_So… what does that mean? That he’s George, but also Fred? Maybe he was originally named George but now even they’re not sure anymore? Or… He was originally George, but he’s also Fred because of that whole ‘what’s in a name’ thing, and they switch places so often, and… um… and how am I supposed to know which one’s which afterwards? Also, are they scientifically identical or fraternal and just look the same? And… why are they looking at me funny? Oh, right, I’m staring. Oops._

She blinked, then looked down at her feet, where a small patch of frost was growing. She frowned at the ice and then glanced up at the twins. A small, mischievous smile twitched at her mouth.

She directed her magic towards the source of her frustration, halfway through it realizing she wasn’t quite sure that this wouldn’t land them in the hospital. But by that point, she’d gone a bit too far to pull back properly.

Jacob started laughing.

Aria looked up at what her magic had wrought, and started shaking with the laughter she was trying not to let into sound.

The twin on the left, who had called himself Fred, had bright blue hair- electric, neon, eye-shattering blue. The one on the right now had bright green hair, matching his brother in vividity.

“What?” green-hair asked in confusion. He glanced at his brother and then started laughing as well, which prompted the other to look at the one and they they were all laughing and Aria gave her laughter voice.

“Okay, how’d you get _that_ to work?” Blue asked after they had calmed down some.

“Channeling of Accidental Magic.” Aria said a little shyly.

Green adopted the look of someone who knew the subject matter, his face going serious and his hand going to his chin thoughtfully while he nodded. “Ah, yes, that. Which is… what, exactly?” He dropped the act and looked as confused as a person could be.

“Well… You know how accidental magic works, right?”

“Eh. Magic responds to emotions and lack of control and goes wild?” Blue said.

Aria frowned. “It doesn’t… it doesn't _go_ wild.” She said. “It _is_ wild. Magic is, at its core, wild, untrained, unharnessed. The magic doesn't change, we do- the people harnessing it. Mages- Sorry, witches and wizards- are closer to the magical core than no-maj’s. Sorry, Muggles. See, magic is another form of energy, like electricity, heat, radiation, and so on. And like the law of conservation of energy says, magic can’t be destroyed or created, so the thought that we mages just _create_ magic out of no-where is completely ridiculous.”

The twins looked at Jacob slightly pleadingly. His reaction was a shrugged and a mouthed ‘you asked.’

“Mages are just more connected to this energy than no-maj’s. So when we’re untrained, it sometimes breaks loose. More when we’re little and are worse at controlling it. But even fully trained mages can have accidental magic if they’re really emotional or something and let their guard down. Like I said before, Magic _isn’t_ some friendly force like some people want to think. It’s wild. When we learn to control it, we build up walls that keep it from coming out when we don’t want it to- most of the time. Again, emotions are weird. Usually people build these on their own after a few bouts of big accidental magic. That’s what wand are for- their a channel through the walls, like we’re channels for the energy. A multi-layered connection for safe-keeping, like multiple locks or safety-charms. A while back, an eccentric wizard named  Nikola Tesla put out the theory of Intuitive Wandless Magic.”

“And by a while back she means a few decades ago.” Jacob put in.

“Yep. So, the theory was that if someone didn’t learn to put up all those walls, they’d be able to do wandless magic intuitively, without all the strict learning and meditation required to do it normally. Naturally, Tesla would have proven it himself, but by the time he developed the theory he was already in his adult-hood. He _did_ try to relax his defence mechanisms, but it didn’t quite work so well. He put the theory out, and it was mostly ignored by most people- he was kidna seen as a nut-case. Anyway, his theory was that if you were able to do something accidentally with your magic, you’d be able to do it on purpose wandlessly- the channeling of accidental magic. There were a few points he was slightly off on, but most of it’s spot-on.”

“Basically, she can do things on purpose that she’s done accidentally.”

As if the universe wanted to prove how useful this skill was, a cloud of gnats chose that moment to fly at them.

The twins heard a crackling sound and saw a flash or three of light, then the cloud was gone.

“It’s very useful as mosquito repellant.” Jacob said, smiling.

“Wait…” green said. “How would you know about this theory at a young enough age to be able to try it?”

“Jacob’s fault.” Aria said, pointing to him as Jacob said “Wasn't me.”

The twins appeared amused. “Hey, Aria, can you keep a secret?”

“What kind of secret?” Aria asked.

“The kind that’s absolutely harmless but mum would definitely freak out if she knew.”

Aria looked at Jacob. “Do you know what they're talking about?”

“I think so.”

“Is it animagus level or mother’s day level?”

“Eh... Probably closer to the automated desk level.”

She nodded. “Okay. I can probably keep that kind of secret.”

Blue raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to tell us about all those things. But first- Jacob, we’re working on trick wands. Want to come test them? Were trying to figure out how well that can fool not-us people.”

Jacob smiled. “Sure. but Aria’s coming. If your trick wands can fool her, they can fool anyone.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

Aria shrugged. “Wandmaking is kind of a hobby of mine. I’m not, not on a professional level or anything but my wands are usable, although I think they can’t take quite as much strain as a higher-quality wand. But they work just fine for most things. Just, don’t compare them to Gray Fox or Ollivander or Jade Blossom or anyone like that.”

“I’ve only heard of one of those people.” Green said.

“Gray Fox and Jade Blossom are to their respective areas as Garik Ollivander is to here.” Aria clarified.

“RIght then. Coming?”

Aria nodded.

“You’re both in Hogwarts, right?” She asked.

“Well…”

“Not right now…”

“...as it’s summer...”

“...But we did go last year…”

“And will go next year. Probably.”

“Why?”

“What’s it like?”

They made faces.

“Well…”

“It’s school…”

“Why do you ask? I thought you guys didn’t do school.”

Aria looked at the ground. “I might be going this year. Maybe.” She anticipated the swing from her brother and ducked.

“What? Jacob asked. “When did this happen?”

“This morning.”

“Well, in that case…”

“If nothing else, the food’s pretty good.”

“Especially for feasts, on the first and last days and holidays and stuff.”

“Although pumpkin juice gets old really quickly.”

“And it’s great for pranking…”

“Not that you’d care, would you?”

“Probably not.”

“So that dye-charm you hid in the spaghetti sauce wasn’t a prank?” Jacob interjected.

“Usually.” Aria amended. “I’m not usually into pranking. But that was the first of april and it’s the traditional no-maj’s prank-day.”

“Right.” Jacob said. “Can’t forget april fools day.”

“No, we can’t.” blue said, smiling with green twin impish grins.

“Oh, speaking of.” green said.

“I wonder what mum’ll say about our hair…”

Aria flushed. “Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s great. Oh, ask mum about Hogwarts and she’ll tell you all about how great it is.”

“What are the teachers like?”

“Well…”

The rest of the tip was an explanation of whose classes you could prank in and whose you couldn’t, with a very severe warning against the potions class and teacher.

“Hey, you’re Ronniekin’s age, aren’t you?” blue asked as they were nearing a house (or stack of houses) that, from a quick glance, was defying all the standard laws of architecture and structural engineering just to stay up.

“Who?”

“Their little brother, Ron. He’s a bit younger than you, I think.”

“He’s starting school this year.” blue said. “if you go, try to get him into trouble, would you?”

Aria shrugged noncommittally.

“But, not in Snape’s class. I wouldn’t wish his wrath on anyone.”

“Well…”

“Maybe a total git. But Ron’s not quite there yet.”

“Snape-he’s the potions teacher, right?”

“Yeah, and the head of Slytherin house.”

“Which he totally favours.”

“What’s a head of house? You said the transfiguration teacher was one too, right? Mc-something?”

“McGonagall. She’s the head of Gryffindor house.”

“That’s the house we’re in.”

“So she’s supposed to try to keep us out of trouble and stuff.”

Aria still wasn’t sure what they were talking about it but wasn’t sure that their information would be reliable.

“Oh, the houses are the four different groups that they divide all the new students into at the beginning of the school-year.”

“Kinda silly if you ask me, dividing us all up like that, but it does make for good quidditch.”

“Bit more than just friendly competition, if you catch my meaning.”

“Yeah, last year I think just about everyone ended up in the hospital wing at some point or another.”

“Madam Pomfry had a fit when we came in after the last game.”

“What are the different houses? Slytherin, Gryffindor, and… two more?”

“Hawkbeak and Flibertigibet.” blue said, then opened the kitchen door and walked in.

“George Weasley! What have you done to your hair?” a woman’s voice yelped.

“Wasn’t me, mum. Besides, can’t you tell I’m Fred?”

Green walked in behind him.

“What in the…” the woman said. Then, with a tone of head-shaking, sighed “well at least this way I might be able to tell you two apart for a little while. Who’s responsible?”

“Aria Hudson.”

“Oh, the neighbour girl? Hi Jacob. Oh, is that Aria?”

Jacob pulled her inside.

“Hello.” Aria said, though she wasn't sure it made the trip between her mind and mouth properly. Part of her mind was calculating the chances of the house collapsing in the next breeze.

“Hello, Aria, I’m so glad you could come over now. Your mother told me about your home-studies, are you planning on going to Hogwarts now or are you going to continue home-schooling like your brother?” Mrs. Weasley asked. She was a slightly plump woman with auburn hair and a neat, though well-used, house-dress.

“Um…. I’m not sure. I don’t know too much about Hogwarts… the twins told me some but I’m not sure how reliable that information is…”

“Oh, don’t let them worry you, Hogwarts is wonderful.Would you like me to tell you about it?”

“Yes please.” Aria said a little awkwardly.

Mrs. Weasley started talking and the twins and Jacob slipped up-stairs. Just before Jacob moved away from her he sent a message into her mind- his voice saying ‘when you’re ready, tell Mrs. Weasley that you need to go back home and that you’re going to get me. Then come up and look at their wands.’

Mrs. Weasley chattered away for quite some time, explaining the houses and the classes and teachers. She was describing the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, when an older Weasley boy came in.

“Hello Percy- this is Aria. she’s considering going to Hogwarts but isn’t quite sure.”

Percy started telling her about all the teachers and classes all over again. he had a very different perspective on them than the twins. He was a bit more formal as well, and clearly more respectful. They were much clearer on the houses (which were gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and and Slytherin) and the sorting than the twins (apparently they used a sentient, mind-reading hat. Aria wondered how it worked). Aria decided that the house-cup thing was a bit stupid, but if it helped motivate the students to be good then it served its purpose at least.

Finally, she timidly raised the subject of time and said that she should probably get her brother and go home.

“Alright then. It was lovely talking with you. I hope you decide to go to Hogwarts!” Mrs. Weasley said cheerfully, then went to take her tea-pot off the stove. Aria went up the stairs. Two more children- a girl and a boy, both taller than her and with the brilliantly red hair she was coming to associate with Weasley children- were arguing on the stairs. Their argument was just escalating into shouting as she came upon them.

Aria hesitated, feeling a little awkward. The girl was, of course, Ginny, the only Weasley girl. The boy was probably Ron. they were taking up the entire stairway and Aria wasn’t

sure how to get by.

“Just because you’re a year older than me and you can go to hogwarts this year, doesn’t mean that you can tell me what to do!”

“That’s not why I’m telling you to clear off! It’s my room! you’ve got your own! Stop bothering me why don’t you?”

“You nearly scared me out the window!”

“So what if I had? You weren't supposed to be up there anyway!”

Aris set a foot against the wall, trying to send her magic along the pattern she had used before. It took a few tries for anything to happen, and then the fell to the ceiling with a thump. The two didn’t seem to notice, however, and continued with their argument, finally calling in the mother support.

“Mum! Ginny was in my room again!”

“Ginny! What were you doing in there?”

Aria walked across the slanted stairway roof and then called her magic to a halt, dropping to the floor in a controlled roll. There were two bedroom doors here, one neatly labeled ‘Percy’, the other with several spatters of what looked like paint but might have been some kind of potions experiment.

She knocked on that one. It was promptly opened by a grinning Jacob.

“These things are great, Aria!”

“Come on in!” one of the twins called.

She did, with caution. There were several boxes of stuff, two messy beds and worn out loœing chests spilling out half their contents, and two desks.  On one of them were two wands.

“Which one’s the fake?” blue asked proudly.

Aria moved closer to examine them.

“No touching, that’s the only rule.”

Aria looked at them closely, eyes narrow, comparing the two. They were identical, a basic, unornamented wand, a pale tan color with a smooth taper.

The grain on both of them was all wrong. No wandmaker in their right mind would possibly make a wand like that-would they?

“They’re both fake.” Aria said. “I think.”

“Pick ‘em up and see!” the twins chorused. Aria picked them up, not sure what a ‘trick wand’ was supposed to do.

They both shivered as soon as she picked them up, one wiggling into the shape of a toy rubber chicken (or was it a duck?), though it still looked like wood and was a rigid as wood. Strangely,it felt like rubber. The other one just turned into a lump of gray rubber. She dropped them, jumping away as they transformed. Frost spread out where her feet hit the ground.

The twins started laughing.

“They’re not quite done.” green explained. “That one’s supposed to turn all the way into a rubber chicken, and the other one’s supposed to turn into a rat.”

“How’d you know they were both fake?” blue asked.

“The grain of the wood.” Aria said. “It’s not right for a wand.”

“Huh. Thanks, we’ll take that into consideration.”

Jacob and Aria started back down the stairs. Ron and Ginny were still arguing about the trespassing. Mrs. Weasley seemed to have just about given up with a ‘well, either you two figure it out on your own in the next five minutes or you’ll both spend the rest of the evening in your room!’ then she added a

“Let Jacob and Aria by, please.”

Ron and Ginny turned and looked at Aria and Jacob, confused.

“When did you guys get here?” Ron asked.

Ginny elbowed him, eliciting a ‘hey!’ before saying “Hello Aria. I’m Ginny. Sorry we couldn't meet yesterday.”

“Hello.”

The two younger Weasley children moved to one side and Jacob pushed past them down the stairs, pulling Aria with him as she’d frozen again.

“By, Mrs. Weasley!” he called as they left.

As the door shut behind them, he asked her “How come you didn’t freeze when you met the twins?”

Aria shrugged, and they finished the walk home in companionable quiet.

On the way, Aria decided that if  magic were to somehow vanish, the Weasley house would collapse and the tremors would affect them. The likelihood of the house falling on theirs depended on the wind.

Dinner was soup and noisy.

Aria studied her latest language for a few hours before going to bed, still trying to figure out the difference in the hisses, and decided she might need to find someone who spoke parseltoungue to help her with it, as scary as that sounded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The theory of intuitive wandless magic explained. Hope no-one minds that I made Tesla a wizard. I'm not planning on making Edison one, so there/ Sorry.  
> And its a bit more complex than she explains here; it's not an ex-machina machine. Hopefully.


	3. Diagonally

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Changes that must be made, Diagon ally, and wands. (mostly Diagon ally and wands.)

Aria frowned at the book she was reading (borrowed from the Weaselys). This, combined with their descriptions, made one thing frightfully clear. She summoned a roll of parchment and started writing (in pencil so she could revise) a letter.

      _Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts (and quite a few other titles I can’t remember right now and don’t really care to list. My apologies.)._

_Hello. I have been considering attending your school. I understand that for most children that’s not really a thing, but my family has been home-schooling for as long as we know of. Well, depending on which family line you traced, anyway. One of her great-grandmother’s had come from Britain and had attended Hogwarts, but that was several generations ago. She frowned at the line, erased it , and re-wrote it to say ‘...for generations.’ there. She continued writing. However, due to various circumstances, I have been considering enrolling this year. I am eleven, as I believe most of your first-year students are. However, in my research into your school, I have learned of several problems which you might not be fully aware of. The main one is that your History of magic class is taught by a ghost with an obsession with Goblin rebellions. This is a major problem as History is, understandably, a mandatory subject. But (from what I have heard, please do correct me if I am wrong),the only people to have passed the standard exams are the people who spent more time studying it on their own than in the actual class. This would heavily imply incompetence on the behalf of the teacher. While professor Binns may have been a good teacher at some point, it would appear that he is now jeopardizing education of most of magical Britain. I understand if school policies or other things make replacing him difficult, and that ghosts tend to be set in their ways, but please. This cannot continue. If history isn’t learned properly, it will be repeated. And as fascinating as it is to study, I’d rather not repeat the witch hunts, rebellions, wars, treaties, etc. of the past. I can see several options (as suggestions. I do understand that I am still a child and 1, adults don’t usually like taking orders from us, and 2, as a child, I don’t have enough experience to make wise decisions all the time. That’s what parents are for):_

_-You can try to convince Professor Binns to pass on. I know this is difficult, but it would solve the problem- tell him he was filled his role well and honorably and that his family is likely awaiting him on the other side, hoping he’ll go to them. Then again, for this you might also have to tell him he died; rumor says he is unaware or this. Then you’d need to find a new teacher and do all the proper bureaucratic insanities for that, but it should fix the problem, assuming you can find a good teacher. Hopefully his poor teacher started recently enough that you can find a proper history expert._

_-You could convince him to change. I’m not sure how to do this, but I’ve read that it is possible._

_-You could also run two classes, one with a better teacher and one with him in different places/ times. He might realize that he has no students eventually, and then you would have to explain it to him. You would also have to find a new teacher._

_There is also the muggle studies class. I understand that this one is not mandatory and not available until third year, but from what I’ve heard it is horribly out of date and much is straight-out incorrect. This might have led to much of the recent anti-muggle sentiment I’ve read of._

_The last problem I see at the moment is the lack of assimilation. I understand that muggleborns attend here but are offered the exact same classes as students from wizarding families. The muggleborns probably won’t understand many of the nuances of wizarding society, things that you or others might take for granted like floo networks and the wizengamot, or even quidditch. And those from long-time wizarding families probably don’t understand things like telephones, braille, or even dyslexia. Half-and-half families probably have a better chance of understanding them, depending on parental decisions, but these are two vastly different worlds thrown together with precious little explanation- except, of course, for the failing history and muggle studies classes. Please let me know what you think of these problems and any action you are taking concerning them promptly._

_Sincerely,_

_Aria Hudson_

She thought for a bit, then added a

_P.S. I have also heard that there are no safety measures taken in the potions class. Not even eye protection or a teacher that can stand teaching. On the other hand, this information comes from the Weasley twins and they are notoriously bad sources._

She looked it over, fixed a few spots where she’d written in a different language or alphabet, and then inked it. She blotted the ink dry-ish and then rolled it up, folding it to write an address on the back. Albus Dumbledore (semi-urgent) She sealed it with a bob of wax from a candle -melting it with a spell- and stamped it with the end of her wand, leaving an imprint of several stylised korean letters. Read out properly, they sounded out her name in the old tongue. Mostly though, it just looked like a random design. Maybe a bit like a flower. The letters stuck out in the silvery wax. It was easier to carve that way. She cooled it, the soft scent of honey drifting to her, and then went downstairs to find someone to give it to Chen’yong-Boreal. The owl didn’t like her, Jacob, or Owen- mostly her and Owen.

“Hey, Lynn, could you please give this to Chen-yong?”

“Only if I can take him treats. He can still tell it’s your letter, you know.”

“That’s mom’s call.”

Lynn took the letter and went to find their mom. Kind of. She went to the entry way and yelled “Mo-o-om!”

Aria could hear their mom call back “what?”

“Can I give Boreal some treats? Aria’s sending a letter!”

“I guess so.” there was a note of resignation, as if their mother was finally coming to terms with the fact that their owl would never approve of Aria’s animagus form. Aria breathed a sigh of relief, hoped Chen-yong’s sense of duty would see the letter properly delivered, and that the headmaster would reply in time.

* 

_Miss Aria Hudson (I can’t begin to tell you how much of a relief it can be not to have so many titles)_

_Thank you for your interest in my school and for your concern. As I think about it, it has been a while since we had a proper check to ensure quality in our classes. Thank you for your suggestions. I’ll see what can be done, but this isn’t going to be an overnight change. Imagine that! With all the paperwork involved in running a school, too… Your concern for assimilation is interesting. I don’t think we’d ever really thought about it-one of those things we take for granted. While the Weasley twins usually cannot be counted on for information, they are mostly correct on their report of the potions class. Safety measures are still new and are mostly optional. Professor Snape doesn’t have the heart of a teacher, but is an excellent potions master. His lack of patience for what he sees as non-sense likely has not endeared him to the twins._

_Sincerely,_

_Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster, and quite a few other silly things besides._

*

A few weeks later, Aria was doing two things: Shopping for school supplies, and regretting the decision that required them. She went to get her school robes first. Her mom went to the apothecary with an agreement to meet up at Flourish and Blotts. The unspoken agreement was that whoever got there first wouldn't complain about the wait; they'd be going over the books.

“Hello, dear!” a smiling, plump, short (though not nearly so short as Aria) witch said cheerily. Aria categorized it as the false cheer the witch showed all customers before responding.

“Um… Hello.”

“What can I help you with? Is your mother nearby?” She asked, brushing a piece of black thread off her mauve robes.

“Um… my mom went to the apothecary to get a few things she’s running low on and stuff. Um… I’d like to get some school robes?” _why is this so awkward why did mom make me do this by myself I think I’m going to literally die am I breathing properly i think the temperature just dropped ten degrees I feel ice under my feet and calm down already this isn’t helping!_

“Oh! First year of Hogwarts?” Aria saw familiar surprise flash across her face.

“Um… yes…”

“Come on over back here then, and we’ll get you fitted.”

Aria followed the witch past formal robes and dress robes (she wasn’t sure what the difference was, but they were labeled separately.), summer-robes (just starting to be on-sale, thought the price tag still seemed outlandish.) and winter-robes (get jump-started on the season!), cloaks and hats to go with them all, and then a whole bunch of black with size-dividers. There were several white boxes on a shelf with names printed on them. The witch pulled out a stool and told her to ‘hop on up!’ in a tone that made Aria cringe internally. _I know I look like an eight year old, do you have to talk for me like I’m a five-year-old?_ She did get onto the stool, though. The witch got one of the black robes in the size-section ‘000’. She helped Aria slip it on. It fell past her feet and almost to the floor, despite the stool. It felt a bit like wearing a tent. The witch happily pinned it in and up.

“You’re American, right? What brings you to Hogwarts? They have a school there, right?”

“Um… we moved. Job stuff.”

“Ah.” the witch nodded knowingly. Aria doubted the woman had moved in her life, except for out of her parents house.

After the main robe had been properly adjusted, the witch got out the over-robe part of the uniform and started adjusting that. Partway through it, a blonde boy Aria had seen before walked in, trying to radiate importance. The witch jumped up.

“Oh! Heir Malfoy! Right this way please!” Another witch started helping Aria with her things while the other witch went to help ‘heir Malfoy’.

“And the importance of titles again seems to outweigh the virtue of the people carrying them.” Aria said softly in Latin.

Draco looked up. “I didn’t know you spoke latin.” He said.

“Oh. well, I do.”

“Are you looking forward to school?”

“The part of me that isn’t terrified is.”

Draco smiled a little. “I suppose that’s understandable. I’m nervous myself and my family's been going for as long as Hogwarts has existed.”

“Really?”

“Yes. we’ve all been Slytherin, too. Well, there were a few exceptions- a handful of Ravenclaws here and there, the odd Hufflepuff or Gryffindor.”

“So you think you’ll be in Slytherin? House of ambition…”

“Probably. Ravenclaw would be nice as well, I guess. I think my father would kill me if I go into Gryffindor or Hufflepuff.”

“Literally or figuratively?”

“I’m… not sure.”

Aria blinked. “Truly?” she hadn’t really meant the question.

“Yes.”

The woman helping Aria pulled the over-robe back off of her. “We should have your order ready in twenty minutes. You can come back to pick it up or we can deliver it to your house for an extra sickle.”

“I can pick it up.”

“Okay, that’ll be ten sickles for the set- three sets of robes, one winter cloak, and the hat.”

It sounded absolutely insane to Aria. With quite a bit of reminding herself that knuts, sickles, and galleons weren't the same as thalers, she paid and gave them her name for the order, fumbling with the oddly-shaped coins as she did. For whatever reason, sickles had been made triangular. The best reason she could come up with for that was to was used as a last-measure weapon against lycanthropes or vampires. Galleons were oval and knuts were square. She had no idea what wizarding Europe had against sensible circles, which gave you a handy guide for drawing and wore less on moneybags and pockets as well. They also looked nicer on a string- the European money didn't even have holes to give you that option! Aria was so caught up in her comparing the two systems that she accidentally wrote her name in Greek and had to re-write it.

“I’ll see you at school.” Draco said as she left.

She nodded and then looked at her list, trying to relax- after all, she already had several of the items on the list. Wand, check. Actually, she had several she could use, but her own special wand she had bonded with, yes, she had that. It also got jealous if she used other wands, so she didn't, except to test them after she made them. Cauldron? Check. Although… she frowned, thinking. _The sizes might be different, confound it! I’ve got a size one cauldron, but who’s to say they measure it the same way here? I guess I’ll have to at least check. Oh, and my cauldron isn’t pewter, so I guess it’s still out._ She erased the check mark she’d made next to ‘1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) _Okay, what’s next?_ Vials. _check, hopefully their ‘one set’ is the same as my ‘one set’._ Telescope. Check. _Hopefully they don’t mean a specific kind. If they do, they shoulda said that_. 1 set brass scales. _Oh come on! What’s wrong with other materials? Why pewter cauldrons, why brass scales? I kinda understand the crystal or glass vials, but why pewter and brass?_! She sighed, shaking her head and muttering to herself in whichever language happened to come out about the insanity of the general population before realising that her entire conversation with Draco had been held in latin.

She walked past a quill shop, pausing for a bit while wondering if she could make a quill into a wand. She continued past, deciding that, even if she could, it would be nigh impossible to aim.

She turned her shopping list around and looked at the map drawn on the back with a simple enough spell- with some tricky arithmancy she’d hinder-helped one of her old cousins make when she was three and had gotten lost for around the fortieth time that trip-. There was a simple line-drawing of the alley in black with a red dot marking where she was. A yellow dot showed where her mom was. Most of the shops had their titles written inside of them in medium gray. Some of the off-shoots of the alley were labeled in a darker gray, including a place called knockturn alley with some unsavoury- sounding shop names.

A woman walked by selling flowers loudly as Aria heading towards a shop labeled as selling cauldrons. Part of the street had apparently been turned into a short flight of stairs. Aria stumbled over the top one and fell down the other two, bruising her arm and back on the corners (which were then covered in frost) but ending up on her feet. A few people glanced her way, likely more in response to her startled ‘ack!’ than anything. She brushed a leaf off her sleeve while rubbing the sore spot on her arm, then straightened out her map. It had torn slightly, but was still quite serviceable.

“You’ve never been to Diagon Alley before, have you?” Draco’s voice asked.

Aria jumped, turning. She landed on the ground this time. Any frost she accidentally made was quickly melted in the summer heat. “Um… No? I… have a map, but it’s not… it doesn't show stairways.”

“Well, they’re fairly common. where did you get a map from, anyway?”

“Um… it’s a spell my cousin made for me.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Aria looked at her map again. “She’s the one that taught me arithmancy. Well, a little. I can’t make spells or anything yet, but I know the basics. Up to exponents anyway, and I’m still a little lost around fractions, but… I’m… babbling, aren’t I?”

“Yes. what do you still need to get?”

“Um… a cauldron and scales. Oh, and probably gloves. Then I’m meeting with my mom for books. Probably so we can talk each-other out of buying the entire stock.”

“Bookworm?” “Learn-a-holic.”

“Oh, Ravenclaw.”

“Probably. Still get lost like a dead compass, though.”

“You say some of the strangest things.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

“Huh. well, thanks. I guess.”

Draco glanced back. “I should probably go find my Mother to get a wand. Ollivander's picky about them, apparently.” Aria’s eyes widened. “Ollivander? Garrick Ollivander? Th-the one who revolutionized European wandcraft?”

“Yes. I think so. I haven’t exactly studied wandlore. But I think there’s only one wandmaker named Ollivander. Aria? Are… you okay?”

“There are. Three wandmakers. Who have discovered wand alignment finality! I mean, there’s some debate over who did it first and whatnot, but they all did it independently so it doesn’t really matter. Gray Fox, Jade Blossom, and Garrick Ollivander!”

Draco looked a little confused. “It’s like- it’s…” if she were more normal, she might have squealed in excitement. Then again, if she were more normal, she probably wouldn't be as excited about wands.

“Aria, he’s just about the only wandmaker in Britain.”

“And that’s amazing! I met Gray Fox once, when I was visiting Ilvermony because he was there for the opening ceremony where the new students are chosen by their houses and get their wands, but I was tiny and barely remember any of it. Have you ever thought how amazing it is that you can just go see such an influential wandmaker? That he’s just… there?”

“Not… really…”

Aria tipped her head, blinking her strange eyes. “Yeah, I guess most people wouldn’t. But… still. Have fun!” She turned and checked her direction before walking towards the london-side of the alley to get a cauldron. Maybe I’ll have to add one more stop to my list… what am I thinking, it’s Ollivander! It’s not like I can just walk in and say hi! She reached the cauldron shop, which had a neat sign naming itself ‘Pottage’s cauldron shop’. Bright, shiny cauldrons gleamed in the window, some made of gold (Aria wondered if they had an anti-melt charm and if it interfered with brewing), some collapsable (Aria doubted they’d do well with some of the more heavy-duty potions), some of silver (Aria wondered about the corrosive effect of the potions brewed) or brass (Aria was sure there was something off about that, but she couldn’t put her finger on it), even copper (Aria hoped there was nothing of electrical nature made there. She would have worried about that for the silver ones, but she was preoccupied with the decay). A few were labeled self-stirring, and a quick glance over the cards attached confirmed her suspicion that they were only good for the standard stirring pattern, and you still needed to tell it which way to stir and when to switch. She went inside and looked around. The shop was neatly sorted by cauldron type, then size. The type was listed above them, then the size divider ran horizontal. A size one cauldron was one foot tall. A size two cauldron was two feet tall, a very sensible size for cauldrons. It was also a very sensible system, though Aria wasn’t sure what you would do with the larger cauldrons- she could stand under a size four-and-a-half cauldron sitting on it’s rim. As best as she could figure, one could make a nice batch of kimchi in them, but they didn’t seem to be much good for much else. She got a cauldron, trying her best to ignore the surprise about her lack of size and her accent, and put it in her handy haversack (even with the opening stretched to its limit, it was a tight squeeze). As she reached a miscellaneous equipment shop, she encountered someone frustratedly trying to return a set of brass scales because “I only got this set because my grandson couldn't find his other one! He doesn’t need two!”

“Well, I’m sorry Lady Longbottom, but our return policy is that we don’t refund except in the case of a faulty product. Surely you can afford it?”

“Just because I can afford it doesn't mean I should do it. If that was my policy I would quickly be able to afford very little.” the old woman turned in a bit of a huff and almost knocked into Aria.

“I’m sorry.” Aira said, moving out of the way, then paused. “Um… Ma’am, what kind of scales were you trying to return?”

“What business is it of yours?” the woman asked, obviously able to overlook accidental way-getting-in but not noisiness.

“I’m sorry- I couldn't help overhearing what you were saying. But if they’re the same kind of scales as I’m trying to get I could just buy them from you and it would be as if you had returned them and gotten your money back, and then I bought them for the same price.”

The woman considered it. “These are standard brass scales.”

“Perfect!” Aria said, smiling a little (partially because she couldn’t believe that she’d just spoken to a complete stranger of her own volition- and a grumpy one at that) “How much did they cost?”

“Hey! Other people aren’t allowed to sell things in here!” the store owner said.

“Then we’ll just have to leave.” Lady Longbottom said, and lead Aria outside. And, right outside of the front window, they traded. The scales were a sickle. Aria out them in her bag and thanked the woman before going back inside to get gloves. The store owner was clearly frustrated with her.

“You just… bah.” he muttered something about american youngsters that she suspected he didn't think she could hear. “What do you need?”

“Work gloves. It says on my list ‘dragon hide or similar’” There was the now very familiar look of surprise as he realized that she was starting Hogwarts.

“Well, we’ve got those. Dragon hide and similar.”

She selected a pair of good quality, sturdy gloves that seemed to be the most likely to get the most work relative to their cost. As she paid for them, she surprised herself again by saying “I don’t really see why you’re frustrated with me. I took a frustrated customer off your hands.”

He sighed as they exchanged metal for leather. “You’re still young, it’s understandable. But she’ll likely never come back here after that.”

“Well, it didn’t look like she was planning on coming back anyway.” Aria said. “were you planning on calling her back and offering her a partial refund or something? That doesn't sound very honest.”

He had the decency to look ashamed as she put her gloves away and turned to the door. As she pushed the door open, she felt an intrusion in her mind. She shoved it out forcefully, the idea of pain filling her mind and driving the intruder out. The man at the counter gasped slightly and she glanced back, smiling slightly, though her mouth was completely dry. Then she walked out, the bells on the door jingling slightly. She noticed the lady longbottom woman talking to a slightly rounded boy who looked around eleven as she walked up the street to Flourish and Blotts. Then again… She went to the spot labeled on her map as ‘Ollivander’s Wands’. Strange. When Draco had said he needed to go find his mother to get a wand, he’d looked in the wrong direction. She didn’t see anywhere else that might sell a wand on her map. The shop was old and worn looking, the sign’s letters were peeling and the single display had a layer of dust on it (well, the pillow the wand was on was dusty. The wand was perfectly clean and polished), the stone walls were cared-for but nothing fancy. No flashing signs, wide windows, or anything to catch your attention, just the well-used sign and the simple, beautiful wand. Aria could feel the harmonics from the other side of the wall, the glass, the door.

She opened the door cautiously. A small bell tinkled somewhere. The sense of many, many well-crafted wands reached her, touching her deep inside, and she smiled faintly, contentedly. It was like coming home. The wands reached her in a way many things did not, and she was lost in the beauty of the wands. Then she realised that there were other people in the small room, a boy with very messy black hair trying wand after wand, Ollivander himself, who was snatching wands away from the boy and giving him new ones to try rapidly, and a very large man who had to stoop slightly to fit under the tall ceiling. The man had messy black hair as well, in a tangled bush that man it impossible to tell where beard ended and hair began. The boy was very skinny, and something about him reminded her of Owen when he’d refused to eat dinner (well, the part that had peppers in it, anyway-he insisted that the only proper peppers were the spicy ones) one evening, and then for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next day, for nearly two days. Except he was skinnier than Owen. He also had the slight discoloring of an old bruise peeking out from his collar and thick-framed glasses, and looked slightly overwhelmed by Mr. Ollivander. Ollivander seemed oblivious to all this, and Aria didn’t blame him in the slightest. She only noticed most of it because of her time with siblings and cousins who sometimes got a little rough in their play. And the wands were much more fascinating.

Aria could sense them in their nest little boxes, stacked up to the ceiling, discarded on the floor and a little chair, resonating with her. Wand harmonics were hard to explain. Aria could feel them with all of her senses and none of them at once- as a sound, it was a musical hum; as the shivers on her skin, it was a warm, tingly feeling (although a few wands were cool instead of warm); as a scent and taste, it was warm and slightly biting like cinnamon, sharp like mint, sweet and soft like a hint of cloves, savoury like sage, rosemary or oregano, sparkling in her mouth and tingling with bright energy. As for sight- they were light. Not wand felt exactly the same, and here in the shop it was an orchestra playing together wondrously (although they weren’t all in tune). Ollivander snatched another wand away from the black-haired boy, muttering happily to himself as he did, becoming more and more excited as the boy grew more and more confused and slightly concerned. Aria breathed deeply, soaking in the sensation that wasn't quite there, feeling quite content and as if she could happily stay there forever, in the glow of the wands- the bit of thirst she’d had was long gone, lost. Over half of the wands had been pulled out now, and with each wand the boy tried, Aria could feel its resonance more strongly, until she was nearly giddy in it. And Ollivander was so much closer! Aria sensed a few that might match with her, though not quite so well as the one she had (and it hummed a bit in frustration that she’d even thought something so unfaithful). The sense was growing stronger and stronger, and she vaguely realised that she was smiling.

Finally, muttering happily something about tricky customers and unusual combinations, Ollivander pulled down one of the last boxes from high in a corner. Aria could sense it clearly as it resonated with the boy, and from the glint in Ollivander’s eyes, he felt it too. This wand was nearly begging for the boy. All the wands in the shop sent her a slightly disgruntled feeling- no wand would ever beg for it’s wielder. It was simply very eager, that was all. It has a destined purpose, greatness to come from it with the boy who was now wrapping his fingers around the carefully carved, beautifully polished holly wand. Aria could almost hear the song of a phoenix in the wand’s resonance as it outsung all the wand in the shop; its new master grasped it fully and swished it down, releasing a flurry of red and gold sparks. The sparks danced, again nearly forming the image of a phoenix before dancing away and vanishing. The only wand Aria had been able to feel over the holly-and-phoenix wand was a bit frustrated with her for admiring this other wand so much, but understood that the holly wand was completely the boy’s, and no wandmaker-even an amature- would ever want them parted.

The large man- in the back of Aria’s mind she decided he was either half giant or had just drunk a growing potion when he was little or something similar- clapped excitedly and made excited sounds with no real words to them. Ollivander also expressed his excitement at finally finding the owner for this wand, though he used actual words to do it. He then returned to speaking to himself as he wrapped the wand and set it in it’s box for the boy.

“Sorry, but what’s curious?” the boy asked.

_Was that what Ollivander was saying? I couldn’t hear him over all the wands..._

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter.” Ollivander said.

 _Potter… did I read that name somewhere? Modern Magical History or Current Political Standings with commentary, edition whichever? Or was it just one of those names Draco said? Oh, yes-one of the houses with no current Lord or Lady at it’s head, but still with a member alive, just too young to lead. Huh. Guess that’s him. oh, yeah, it was also in that political standing’s book. And the history one. Oh, and something with the dark arts, right?_ While Aria was going through her mental catalog, Ollivander was continuing.

“Every single wand. It just so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave another feather- just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother-why, its brother gave you that scar.” The poor boy looked very uncomfortable indeed as Ollivander slid back into the memory. “Yes… Thirteen and a half inches. Yew.”

Aria had never made anything with English yew- it was illegal to export in both magical and non-maj’s society.

“Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember… I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter… after all, he-who-must-not-be-named did great things-terrible, but great.”

That title was familiar too. Things were clicking into place as the boy paid for his wand and with a “c’mon, Harry,” from the large man, he started to leave.

“Oh,” Aria said, a little more loudly than she’d intended- the presence of so many wands did strange things to a wandcrafter. The three other people looked at her, a little startled. “S-sorry.” She stammered. “It’s just, I think I read about you somewhere.” Everyone else in the shop looked more than a little surprised. “H-Harry Potter, right? Only remaining heir to the ancient and noble house of Potter and the defeater of some Dark wizard who managed to terrify people out of even writing his name despite it not being tabooed or anything? Although none of the books really say how you managed to do it, and they say you were only one year old when it happened, so I doubt you really remember it- though from what I have read my guess is either the sacrificial shield or a truly astounding case of accidental magic, and… sorry. I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”

They continued to look a bit shocked and she shifted uncomfortably.

“Wait… there are books about me?” the Harry-Potter boy asked.

“Told ya yer famous, Harry.” the large man said. “Ter be honest, I’m just surprised it took ’er so long.”

Aria frowned. “I’ve only just read about him recently. He’s not famous in the western hemisphere.” then she colored slightly as the heated words finished leaving her mouth. “Sorry. I’m still trying to figure out everything normal people here know already-like the proper word for cookies and french-fries- and I don’t like it when people act like I should have known something. And all the wands are making me a bit weird. Sorry.”

“Really?” the large man asked. ‘With all the Harry did, I’da’ thought he’d be known all over the world.”

Aria found a very interesting swirl in the floorboards and engaged it in a staring contest. “Well-maybe he is.” Aria said, slightly apologetically. “I-I don’t really know normal things.”

“Really?” Harry asked. “Like what?”

“Um… Like, I’ve got no idea how just about any sports are played, or who plays them-magical or non-maj -sorry, Muggle- but I do know the mathematical resemblances between an uncurling leaf and the swirls your finger leaves in water, and how to make a potion of lycanthropic stabilizing.” They all looked a bit confused and Aria entirely misread the situation. “I know-it’s not as effective as wolfsbane potion on werewolves, but I don’t know any werewolves, just a were-eagle and a were-fox.”

they still looked confused.

“Um. could we maybe forget I said that? Because now I’m thinking maybe I said the wrong thing.”

“Well, I didn’t really understand any of it, so-sure. I can forget it.” Harry said.

“Thanks.” she lost her staring contest, glancing up at him a little.

“You’re American, right?” he said.

“Was.” she winced. “Is my accent really that noticeable?”

“Definitely.” Harry said with a friendly tone, then waved as he left with the large man. The door closed and the bell tinkled softly again.

“Can I help you, miss?” Ollivander asked.

“Um… I don’t know. I mean, I… um… Y-... ”

“Do you need a wand?”

“Um-no, I have one, and it’s very jealous, actually-nearly left me when I thought about getting a second one- I just… um… Sorry, I’m not sure what I was thinking.” Aria took a hesitant step toward the door.

“May I see your wand?”

“Um- okay.” Aria pulled it out of her sleeve and held it out, her fingers still slightly curled protectively around it. Ollivander took it and examined it. Aria became painfully aware of every slight mark that showed her inferior skill. Not that there was anything wrong with the wand, just the craftsmanship. The varnish showed the brush-strokes and was a little too thick in one place, a little too thin in another. The basswood-seal on the end even had a spot where her knife had scraped too far and damaged that part of it- not noticeable, any of it- except for to someone who knew what they were looking for.

“Who made this?” Ollivander asked after a few moments.

“Um-I did?” Aria said, her voice disappearing.

“Really?” Ollivander asked, looking more than a little surprised. “Who taught you?”

“Um… well, there are one or two books that discuss wandcraft. A few more mention it in passing. I don’t think any of those books were written by wandcrafters, though. They don’t mention resonances or anything at all. Two wandcrafters in America told me a few things. Not much. I… guess it’s kind of like a lot of other trade-crafts; each artisan is secretive of their own tricks and tips.”

“Yes. Not enough to let someone get themselves killed experimenting on their own, though.”

Aria shook her head a little. “One of those times was shortly after I almost did.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yes. I… um.. I tried making a wand out of glass. I couldn’t cast any terribly powerful spells at the time, fortunately. I still wasn’t allowed out of bed for weeks. Longer before my mother let me anywhere near any kind of wand.”

“Not carving equipment?”

Aria shook her head. “Woodworking’s kind of a family thing. Even my five year old brother does some. Not well yet, but he does try.”

Ollivander nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

“Why?”

“That sense you have of wands- of when cores and casings want to meld. You called it resonance.” It almost sounded like a question, so Aria nodded. “I usually call it harmonics, but it is the same thing. Not many people have a sense for that. Not even all wandmakers. Most people can tell when the elements are discordant, but it is, as we have been comparing, much like music. Not everyone can tell an exact note. Unlike music, it doesn't seem to be a skill that can be learned. A talent that can be developed, perhaps, but not a common one. It would make sense that if it would appear, it would be in someone who spends so much time with various woods, with a family history of it. Are any of your relatives wandcrafters?”

Aria shook her head. “Not that I know of. Why?”

“Because then it would make even more sense.”

Aria nodded, then looked at the pile of wands. “His wand. It really wanted to go home, didn’t it?”

Ollivander nodded. “And even of there were another wand that would have worked for him, I doubt it would have made itself be known with that wand here.” He gave her wand back. “A jealous wand, you say?”

Aria nodded, smiling faintly. “And always glad to work with me. So long as I haven’t been unfaithful.”

“And it doesn’t see wandcraft as being unfaithful?”

“As long as I don’t start using those wands too much.”

Ollivander laughed a little. “It’s an interesting pattern you’ve carved there.”

Aria nodded as Ollivander started putting the wand-boxes away and moved to help him. “The woods liked it, kind of carved themselves. I mean, I held the knife, but…”

Ollivander smiled at her. He knew.

“Vinewood, Horn-beam, and Lime…”

“Lime?” Aria asked.

“The knob at the bottom, the fibers wrapping the handle.”

“Oh. I’ve always heard it called Basswood.”

“I see. There’s another kind of wood somewhere in it, but I’m not sure where.”

“There’s a bit of bamboo. That’s what the vinewood and hornbeam are wrapped around.”

“Bamboo?” Ollivander asked, a little surprised.

“Yes. Is something wrong with that?”

“No. It’s just unusual, outside of Asia. I find bamboo a bit difficult to craft. They tend to be more cautious. Your wand is very specialized. Thunderbird and Kirin?”

“Yes.”

“That might account for some of the jealously.”

It was understood that while the components or elements of a wand would contribute to the wands personality, the wand was more than the components. Every so often a wand was the opposite of what the elements would imply.

“Yes.” Aria said, handing Mr. Ollivander another box. She wasn’t quite sure of his organization, but it seemed to follow the harmonic flow.

 

They talked a little more about wands, And then Aria admitted that her Mom was probably waiting for her at this point and they said good-byes and she left.

Ollivander watched after her for a bit. It was unusual for a youngster to show such skill and interest in wandcraft- and if her previous statements were anything to go by, she was interested in far more than just that. But beyond that- the way she’d wrapped bast around her wand to form the handle, it reminded him of someone else, who he hadn’t seen in decades.

*

Aria entered the bookshop as her mom was just about to leave it.

“Aria! Where have you been? Did you get lost? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I didn’t mean to worry you, sorry.”

“Where were you?”

“I met Mr. Ollivander. We talked for a while.”

Her mom sighed. “I suppose that’s to be expected. Did you talk to anyone else?”

“The boy who was getting his wand when I came in. a little. And I spoke some with a woman to trade scales. And that boy I met at the ministry, I ran into him again.”

Her mom smiled as they went out. “Did you get everything?”

“Yes- oh, I still need to pick up my school uniform. They said I could pick them up in twenty minutes-” she checked her watch “-about two hours ago.”

They picked up the clothing and went home, going through the Dragon’s Gate- which was a bit less friendly than the Leaky Tavern but came out in Cardiff instead of London. They took trains and subways back as far as they could, easily passing off as American tourists, then flew the last bit on stashed broomsticks. They unloaded at home, Aria packed it all neatly in her trunk (which had been a gift from several aunts and uncles one new-years and had many enchantments worked into it), and then they ate dinner. A little late, and filled with questions about the different shops, but a good dinner before bedtime. Aria stayed up late reading her new books on the roof. The night-bugs left her alone. Bugs usually did. A wandless ‘lumos’ set a small ball of light hovering near her shoulder. After a while, she went to bed, wondering if the work got more complicated than the books were at. If it didn’t, then she might be wasting her time.


	4. Trains, Toads, and Nerves. Oh, and Rumour Mills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria head off to Hogwarts. On the way, she gets a bit side-tracked.  
> She does find the toad, though...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to change Aria's last name to Carver. I'm not going back and changing everything already out yet, since I'd just miss something and confuse people, plus I'm lazy, so I'm just making this note here. Sorry.

“Aria, want to make something with me before you leave?” Jacob asked.

“Why not. What kind of thing?”

“Well, we could make a weapon after the manner of that anime you read a little while back…”

“I don’t know how to make weapons.”

“We’ll carve it of wood and transfigure it.”

“What kind of weapon?”

“Well, since it’ll be yours-”

“Why mine?”

“To ward off any offending kids at that school you’re heading off to. Particularly boys.”

“Jay…”

“Hey, I’m your big brother, it’s my job. So, katana?”

“Like Blake’s?”

“Nah. have the blade come fully down and such. There’s a lot we can do, with magic.”

“And… this sword will be a gun?”

“Of course.”

“How’ll we keep the balance stable?”

Jacob frowned, thoughtfully. “Maybe we’ll add the sword part later. Just bring your normal sword for now. After all, we don’t rightly know how to make a gun.”

“Should I take that to mean that if I get into a duel, I should ‘finish him rightly’ and throw the hilt of my sword at my nearly vanquished foe?”

“If you want to,” Jacob laughed. “I wouldn’t suggest it in most cases.”

“Maybe in a food-fight.”

“Yep. Throw the heel end of a baguette at him.”

Aria laughed. It felt nice, and she hadn’t really done it in a while. _In so many ways, I’m acting like an adult… but I am still a kid. Maybe I should try to enjoy it for a bit longer._

Neither of them had ever made a gun, and they didn’t really know how to work with metal- they knew concept, but not the practice. Eventually they decided to carve it out of wood and  transfigure it. She’d have to re-charge the transfiguration runes now and then, but it was a functional idea.

The real problem came in with the spring in the magazine. After some debate and broken almost-springs in wood, they made a dowel and transfigured that, bending it into shape afterwards.

Maybe it would have gone faster if they had used more magic.

Maybe it would be easier to just conjure one if she eventually needed it.

But, maybe, it was nice to work together one something like this, and feel like maybe Jacob didn’t blame her for their relocation. And it was more fun this way. It took them a little over a week, but they did it.

Then it was the first of September.

Azeal and Emily got sick over-night and they were lower on the standard healing potions for children than they usually were- most of them had been left behind with aunts and uncles and they hadn’t quite gotten their stock back up. Both parents engaged in potion-making and somehow, with a good deal of mother-magic, confusion, and stress, arranged for Mrs. Weasley to take Aria to the train station with her own children.

After all the good-byes, Aria levitated her trunk with her as she went to the Weasleys. Combined with a feather-light charm, the only way she could make it easier would be if she figured out how to shrink an object holding shrunken items. Her parents knew the spell, but she didn’t. Yet.

The Weasley's car had obviously been enchanted. It was around the size of a sedan, yet easily held everyone’s trunks and everyone themselves, for instance. Aria was fairly certain she saw the seats grow as she got in and the trunk-space deepen as she added her bin, but none of the weasley's seemed to notice. Aria figured it was because they were used to it and didn’t say anything.

The drive was uneventful, as long as family drives went. Aria stayed out of the family drama, which included Ginny yelling at the twins for setting something off in her room and Percy telling his mom all about his new duties as a prefect. Mrs. Weasley obviously knew all these duties, but pretended to be interested. The Twins were teasing their little brother about how he was starting his first year and trying to convince him that the sorting ceremony was a troll-wrestling match. Ron seemed to believe them, strangely enough, and Aria felt a little sorry for him-but not enough to say anything. Anyone from a magical family should know that trolls were far too dangerous to send someone untrained against them. Shouldn't they?

They got to the train station and Aria was overwhelmed by the number of people before they moved away from the car. Frost was forming underfoot, but no-one seemed to notice except the twins, who started teasing her a little. She frowned at them and dyed their hair purple and yellow- sunny, lemon yellow, not yellow-blonde. Then she turned it back.

They stopped teasing her after that.

“C’mon Aria, it’s fine.” Ginny said.

“Packed with Muggles, of course, but nothing to worry about.” Mrs. Weasley said, then started telling off the twins for drawing silly faces on the walls with chalk.

at least, she hoped it was chalk.

“...What was the platform we’re looking for?” Aria asked, not quite sure she remembered and wanting to help somehow, even though her mind was shutting down a little.

“Nine-and-three-quarters!” Ginny said, then turned to her mom. “Oh Mum, can’t I please go early? Aria already knows loads of magic!”

“No, Ginny. Although if you want to study on you own at home, I’ve no objections- Fred, what in the world do you think you’re doing?”

His ‘nothing’ sounded anything but innocent.

Aria noticed the Harry-Potter-boy from Ollivander’s shop. He looked more than a little lost And his owl wasn’t being terribly inconspicuous-  its presence was noticeable enough, but then it occasionally shifted, dispelling any thoughts that it might be a stage prop for a school play or something.

Aria wondered briefly if the schools in England had those and the twins, joking and teasing, went through the gateway to platform nine-and-some-fraction-or-other.

The Harry-Potter-Boy shyly made his way over to the Weasleys and Aria- though she doubted he noticed her. She hardly fit in with the Weasley group and appeared to have accidentally set up several notice-me-not-charms at some point in the terrifying journey. His snowy owl, on the other hand, definitely noticed her and started on a racket as soon as she noticed that her master was bringing her to the falcon animagus.

Blushing furiously and apologizing, Harry asked Mrs. Weasley for the directions onto the platform.

Ron, with his usual tact, was staring at the miss-behaving owl.

“Blimey.” Ron said. “Does she always do that?”

Mrs. Weasley elbowed him.

Aria was of the firm opinion that Harry would have blushed even more deeply, but his brain had decided that the rest of his body did still need _some_ blood to function, and left it as it was.

“Um… no-I don’t think so. I just got her a little while ago, so I don’t really know- But she’s never done this before that I know of….”

“It’s me.” Aria said, meeting the owl’s gaze with narrowed eyes. “Sorry. Owls don’t really like me.”

“Why not?” Harry asked.

“Because I’m a falcon, and we usually don’t get along too well. Hundreds of generations of fighting and prey-stealing. That sort of thing.”

Harry just looked even more confused given this strange explanation. Aria willed herself to start walking to the platform to escape the awkward situation, but her legs refused to obey her and she stood still.

“Oh, you were in the wand-shop, weren’t you?” Harry asked.

Aria nodded, remembering. The frozen-ness loosened some as she did and she toppled over.

“I found the floor.” She announced, making next to no sense. “It’s down. Now I just need to find the opposite so I can stand it.” she was completely blacked out, but conscious.

Everyone around her looked a bit confused at that. She assured the distant, vague seeming voices that she was okay. She stood up as her vision cleared and the tingling in her head went away.

The two boys in her year had gone at that point and she stood up, resting with her feet planted firmly as the clouds of colored dots and tingling came back, then faded away. Then she went through the gateway. Mrs. Weasley was asking her if she was sure she was alright as she did.

“I’m fine…” Aria said. “Just nervous…”

“If you’re sure…”

Aria wasn’t. The sight of the train was also frightening. And the crowd around it- some of the people were parents, true, but Aria hadn’t quite realized how many people went to Hogwarts. She’d estimated maybe a hundred at most- not the several hundred that were milling around.

She focused on the train. It was large and bright red. Aria estimated where the safest place to stay would be for multiple different emergencies she could imagine. She ended up getting in the car at the very end- which was a little tricky since it was almost out of the platform or whatever it was. She got in the compartment at the very end, on the side away from the people, and sat down, stowing her trunk away. She curled up on a seat, in the corner by the window. She cast multiple cushioning charms on the walls and floor to prepare for the start and waited.

And waited.

A toad croaked at her and she looked at it, almost expectantly.

“Hello.” She said to it. “You know that usually falcons eat toads, don’t you? But I guess  you know that I won’t eat you. That would be rude.” she looked at it through her amulet, confirming that it was a toad and not an illusion or animagus. It glowed slightly, telling her that it was a magical pet. She frowned at it slightly. “It is perplexing, though- your master is probably wondering where you are. So what should we do about that?”

The toad croaked again from its perch on the opposite seat.

“I could, but I’m not really comfortable talking to strangers.” she said, pretending she understood what it meant.

The train started and the toad fell off the seat and slid under her seat.

She frowned again and reached underneath, summoning it into her hand. She looked at it, and it looked at her.

Ron looked in- probably trying to find a place to sit- and decided to leave her to her strange staring contest. A few other people checked in as well, but Aria didn’t really notice them, trying to decide what to do.

Finally, she traced a collection of runes on the toad’s back; an array her family had developed before she could remember for finding lost children, toys, and their respective parents or owners.

By that point, the compartment was nearly covered in frost and the poor toad looked like he was half freezing, so it was as much a rescue mission as anything else.

She opened the doors and froze.

Literally and figuratively.

The entire hallway covered in a thin layer of frost in record time, and it took her a little while to get her limbs to do as she told them. after she remembered what she was trying to do, the people who had been running around squealing started asking questions about the ice after the stunned silence they’d started on.

The array worked like a game of hotter-colder; it was a perk that they often used to get sad children to cheer up- playing a game to find their parents or toys.

As soon as she stepped outside of the compartment, the toad started glowing rather brightly. This caused the frost to thicken, turning into full-on ice right around her. A few snowflakes hung in the air.

And everyone was looking at her.

One boy, who seemed slightly familiar, stepped forward, looking hopeful. “Have you found my toad?”

Given that the toad was nearly as bright as a lightbulb, Aria figured that yes  she had. Trying to ignore the others, she nodded, clearing the runes from the toad’s back. The light faded.

“Trevor!” He said, his face lighting up. He took the toad and started inspecting him carefully for injury. “Thank you so much! He keep on vanishing on me. How’d you get him to glow like that?”

“Um…” Aria whispered, “It’s a thing one of my aunt or uncles came up with a while back, for missing toys and things.”

“It’s brilliant! Thanks very much!” he went away, still inspecting his pet.

An older child, one with a shiny ‘P’ badge like Percy had received, came in, looking upset.

“Who’s been using magic?” he demanded. “We’re not supposed to use it outside of school, you know. Come on, who did it?”

There was a bit of confusion and shrugging. Then someone pointed towards Aria. “She came out of her compartment with a glowing toad, then everything froze.” She said.

The prefect looked toward Aria. “Did you?” He asked.

“Um…” Aria whispered, eyes wide. The ice was thickening. “Kind of?”

Percy came in, along with several other Prefects and an adult. “I’m sure it’s just one of Fred and…” Percy stopped as he saw the ice. Then he sighed. “Aria…”

“What?” she managed to say in a tone that was almost loud enough to be heard properly. “I wasn’t trying to, there’s just too many people, and I freaked out, and it just kind of happened, the ice did, I mean, and the toad was because it was missing and I was just trying to help it, and I did find who it belonged to but I froze the car because…” she stopped.

“Maybe repeat that in English?” Percy said.

Aria looked down and muttered an apology (although she worried it might have been in German) as the adult who’d come with the prefects vanished the ice with a flick of her wand.

“Looks like it was just accidental magic.” Percy informed the others.

“Accidental magic?” the first one spluttered. “The entire compartment was covered in- how in the world could that be on accident?”

Percy shrugged. “She’s one of my neighbours and this kind of thing seems to be fairly normal for her.”

They all started at her, not quite making the connection between the attention and the new spread of frost.

“Really?” one of them asked.

She nodded a little. Or, at least, she tried to.

Everyone was definitely staring at her now, it wasn’t just her imagination. Compartment doors had opened and heads were peeking out.

The witch vanished her ice again, but Aria was by now so nervous that not only did the frost come right back, but she couldn't breathe properly.

Her magic was stirring in response to the perceived threat. As ‘fight’ hadn’t worked, it reached into the wood she was standing on for a different option.

‘Flight’.

running along a pattern she’d only used once, Aira melded into the wooden floorboards she was standing on.

She could see lots of feet from here, but it was a dissorianting experience, and she lost her sense of ‘here’ in the few seconds she was wood for before she slid back into normal-ish existence in the compartment she’d been in. the door was closed, she wasn't sure when that had happened, but the compartment was quickly covered in frost. She encouraged it, not wanting anyone to barge in on her, and was soon surrounded by walls at least two inches thick. She curled up on the ground, letting the cold relax her a bit, shaking as she gripped herself tightly.

*

Hermione Granger was fascinated by the idea of being able to accidentally freeze an entire room. She’d once pulled all the books off their shelves and messed with lighting when she was frightened, but freezing and entire room?

Fred and George were upset they’d arrived late to the party. They’d seen some of Aria’s magic before, but never the freezing they’d heard so much about.

Draco decided Aria might make an even more useful ally than he’d originally thought.

Ron wondered why he’d never heard that Aria could do things like that- Percy obviously knew already.

Neville was slightly interested in the incident, but was more concerned about what that might have done to his toad. He’d probably be more interested later, after ensuring that his friend was alright.

Harry wondered why uncle Remus had never told him how powerful accidental magic could be- it had been made out to be more of a nuisance than much else, other than to let you know that you weren’t a muggle.

Aria wasn’t aware of any of this, which really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, since she just locked herself in a block of ice. (and if you are surprised she doesn't know, shame on you.)

She took her knife out of her pocket and set it on the ground away from her, covering it in ice. Worried that if she had too easy access to it, she might do something stupid.

*

The ice incident was soon spread around the train, although by the time the most outlandish edition had been told, it seemed that the tiny first year had summoned a frost giant and turned the prefects into ice statues. This version was disillusioned as soon as a prefect was noticed at the house tables.

As the first years came in, however, the people who’d been there disappointedly told their friends that she wasn’t in the line.

“And you’d have to work to miss her,” one Gryffindor told his friend, “she’s definitely the shortest on the in the group and has freakishly long hair.”

McGonagall, looking over the line and taking a quick headcount when she got to ‘C’, frowned when she realised someone was missing. she moved on, and made a mental note to tell Hagrid to be more careful. And to figure out where the missing first year was quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. Harry already knows Remus. Have fun.  
> also, Jacob and Aria were referring to RWBY, although if I underhand the YouTube comments its one of those 'not technically Manga' things. and yes, it's out of period, but this isn't the SCA so who cares? Also, I may refer to it some more. and Brandon Sanderson's books will definitely get a mention at some point, 'cause he's just too awesome to ignore.


	5. The Sorting at Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was wondering what would happen if one of the first years (or other years, for that matter) weren't with the others. The only 'headcount' mentioned anywhere is when McGonagall read them off for the sorting. But what if someone wasn't there?

Aria, with the help of a calming potion, managed to calm down enough to sleep. She had no idea that the train had stopped, or that it was dark out.

A stout, cheerful witch named Samantha was checking to make sure everyone had gotten off properly, the twins hadn’t left a trick behind, and the elves had gotten everything, when she found out that the last compartment was frozen shut.

She sighed, casting a heating charm on the door until the door opened. Then she realized that it wasn’t just the door that was frozen.

She vanished the ice, though it took a bit more oomph than it had to clear away the bit of frost earlier. While she did it, she realized who had done it. And where that little scared first year had vanished to.

*

Aria woke with a start as the ice vanished. She took a shaky breath and sat up, looking around.

“Hello.” a witch with a kind face said. “Are you alright?”

“Um… I think so.” she looked out at the window, realizing it was dark. “Um…”

“The  others are all up at the castle already. Come on.” she held out a hand. “Can’t miss too much, can you?”

Aria took her hand hesitantly and let the woman help her to her feet.

“Your hands are freezing.” the woman commented.

“Sorry.” Aria whispered. “What’s your name?”

“Samantha Wrin. what’s yours?”

“Aria Carver.”

“Well, looks like we’ll need to find someone to take you up to the castle.” Samantha Wrin said. “I know I would get upset if one of my children got lost on the way to school…”

Mrs. Wrin led Aria to the conductor, where they had a short conversation before deciding they could wait outside for one of the school people to come get her.

The platform here was small and a bit rickety. It was dark except for the light at the end of Mrs. Wrin’s wand. Aria sat at the edge of the platform, looking up through the overhanging tree branches at the sky. The stars weren’t too different from the ones she was used to studying, but they were still different enough to be disconcerting- almost everything was there, just… in the wrong place.

*

Minerva McGonagall and Reubus Hagrid were backtracking. Minerva had given Reubus a lecture on keeping them all together- what if she got lost in the forest?- and on making sure they were all there to begin with. They were now walking in near silence, with the deputy headmistress working on a pan to ensure nothing ‘like this’ ever happened again.

She was getting really worried when they could see light from the station, but still hadn’t found the girl. She re-cast ‘homenum revelium’ as her previous one timed out and died with a slight hiss that only she could hear.

The glow from the station changed- added to the white glow of the lantern and someone's wand, a golden light. Two forms were there, glowing. One was a fair bit taller than the other, and as she came closer the taller one became two people- Samantha Wrin, and a young girl wearing a light gray tunic under a deep green one.  She was staring up at the sky, swinging her feet against the platform with a quiet tapping sound what was quickly swallowed up in the trees.

The other person was Elias Dickerson, the conductor. The trio turned to look at the duo.

“Aria, if you send ice all over the floor every time you get a bit frightened, that might be a problem.” Samantha said, then cast a vanishing spell.

The girl said a very quiet apology and looked down at her still swinging feet, then back up at the sky.

“Hello, Minerva. Reubus.” Samantha said, greeting them properly.

“Hello, Samantha.”

Elias greeted them as well, and Reubus said his own greetings.

“Miss Carver here fell asleep on the train.” Elias said good-naturedly, gesturing to the girl in question.

She muttered something, but given the clarity of the words McGonagall wouldn’t even be able to confirm that she’d been speaking english.

Then again, from what her submission papers had said, it might not have been.

“I see.”

Samantha smiled. “Imagine my surprise when I go through, checking for any stray things and tricks left by… certain students, when one door is frozen closed. And upon opening it- low and behold, but there’s a student sleeping in an ice block.”

“An ice-block?” Minerva asked, wondering what in the world had been done.

“I have very active magic.” The girl said. She had an american accent, though it wasn’t as harsh as it might had been. “It likes to manifest as ice, especially when it can’t find any way to fix whatever’s confused, frustrated, or  frightened me.” She spoke quietly, and her words were almost hidden in the leaves’ rustling.

Minerva wasn’t quite sure what the girl meant by that and filed it away for future reference. Reubus didn’t have the same sense of tact.

“What does that mean?”

The girl shrugged.

“Thank you for making sure she was alright.” Minerva said. “We need to get up to the castle now. It’s very late.”

The girl slid down from her perch and stood up straight. Minerva blinked. While Hagrid made just about everyone look tiny, this girl would no doubt make Samantha look tall.

They stared at each other for a bit. Minerva, being a cat animagus, could pin people down with a stare for quite some time. The girl held her gaze, firm nad unblinking, for long enough the the others started getting uncomfortable. The deputy headmistress saw something in the girl’s pale eyes, something even she wouldn't be able to label properly, but she approved of it. She blinked slowly before saying goodbyes and turning to go.

Minerva led the group back down the path, making sure that the girl stayed with them this time.

“Professor McGonagall?” The girl asked quietly as they walked. Minerva almost missed it.

“Yes?”

“What is your animagus form?”

Minerva stopped, rooted to the spot. She turned and looked at the girl, now confused.

“What?”

“I-i asked what your animagus form. I know that’s not exactly something you tell everyone, but- and my first guess, if I did, would be a cat, but there are lots of other-”

“My form is a cat. How did you know I was an animagus?”

“The way you stare.”

“With that same logic, then, what is your form?”

“A Gyre falcon.”

“I see.” They continued walking. “When did you become an animagus?”

“When I was seven.”

“How did you manage that? It’s a fairly difficult feat.”

“There was a…” she paused. “Well, I think the best word for it in English would be ‘ritual, but from what I’ve heard those have a… negative association.”

“A ritual to become an animagus?”

“To become animagi. It’s a…” she sighed. “The direct translation would be ‘blood bound’ or ‘family bound’, I suppose. Only people related by blood can do it together. It goes in increments of three, five, eight- the fibonacci sequence, just not with one or two.”

“Who did you do it with?”

“Two of my brothers and one of my cousins.”

“That’s only four people.”

“It… is…” she sounded surprised. “That’s odd.”

“Were your parents alright with this?”

“Well, being one of the youngest involved, I was following along with the older people, and apparently they took the philosophy that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

“You’re parents didn’t know about it?”

“No. They found out shortly after we finished, though, because I got stuck. Mom was… not pleased.”

“And for good reason.” McGonagall said. “Have you continued doing reckless things like that?”

“No.”

“Good. Do you know how dangerous animagus transformation can be?”

“I do now.”

They rounded the bend to see the castle. The girl’s eyes widened and the air became noticeably chillier.

*

The magical aura had been growing fairly steadily as they walked closer to the castle. When they came into sight, the tree-filter was gone, and she realized just how much magic there was in the area. In reaction, ice started to form. It vanished as quickly as it came- the magic keeping the balance in the forest.

“What d’yeh think?” The large man asked.

“It… has strong aura... And it’s large.” she said, then realized she’d been speaking Irish.

“Yes.” McGonagall said, also in Irish.

They got in a boat, one large enough for five people- or three, if the third was as large as he was.

The boat set off across the smooth water, moving quickly. The water stayed smooth despite the boat. Curious, Aria plied the enchantments into visibility with the tip of her wand. The glow was quickly noticed by the adults in the boat.

The most recent spell was a size- change spell, and there had been quite a bit of time between that one and the others, the ones that made it work. She couldn’t see those spells as well, past the size-spell, but she didn’t think removing the spell that made the boat big enough for all of them just to see how it worked.

“Carver!”

Aria jumped.

“What are you doing?”

Aria led the spells slide back into invisibility. “I was trying to figure out how it worked. The boat.”

McGonagall didn’t seem sure what to say.

“I was being careful.” Aria offered.

“Good.” McGonagall said finally.

The boat slid through a sheet of ivy. The light on McGonagall's wand glinted off of crystals embedded in the wall. Aria could sense magic in those crystals- not just ambient from the ley-lines and form the castle’s enchantments, but in the crystals themselves.

Looking at them as closely as she could, she decided that they had runes carved into them. The boat ran itself aground rather jarringly, and they got out. There were torches on the walls here, and Aria could see McGonagall's face better. She had stern features and black hair. Her hair was pulled back tightly, making her face look a bit more severe.

“If you’d come with the other firs’ years, this would be a bit slower.” the large man offered.

Aria nodded as they hurried up a staircase, out of the cave- tunnel- and across some neatly trimmed grass.

Up close, the castle was even more overwhelming, but it also had a sense of peace about it, as if it were welcoming her. They hurried up the stone steps and through the large wooden doors- high magic potential, very old, preserved by magic- and up a grand staircase. And then a couple more stairs, a hallway,  stairs, then to a stone guardian.

Apparently the password was ‘lemon drop’.

They hurried up a set of stairs that moved like an escalator.

Aria wished they would stop hurrying so much so she could study the things around them, but supposed that she’d have more time later. Like, say, when it wasn’t nearly midnight.

Hagrid had disappeared at some point. McGonagall knocked on a door at the top of the staircase.

The door opened and they stepped through it. Aria glanced back at the staircase and saw that it stopped as they left it behind. Then the door closed, and she looked around a room that looked a bit like one of her grandparents workshops, only with more books- Even Grandpa Darkeye wasn’t quite that crazy.

That being said, there was a desk and several chairs. The walls were all covered in shelves, with a few random tables thrown in- Aria’s estimate was that without magical help, the tables wouldn't be able to hold up the amount of parchment and random widgets.

Two of the chairs were clear, the others had books on them, or-in the case of the one behind the desk- and old man.

“Good evening.” The man said with a smile.

“Good evening.” McGonagall responded.

Aria was staring at the phoenix she noticed on a perch. The phoenix was asleep, but Aria could still feel a sense of peace from it, and a hint of warmth.

“So- Aria.”

She snapped into proper focus and looked at the headmaster.

“Hello.” she said, then blinked, frowned at herself, and translated. “Hello.”

He was still smiling.

Mcgonagall sat down in one of the two chairs and gestured for Aria to do the same.

“So, what happened?”

“She fell asleep.”

“I see. Well, it’s good to see you’re alright, Aria.”

Aria wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she didn’t.

“As you missed the sorting ceremony, you have two options.”

Aria tipped her head to one side.

“You can be sorted here, tonight, or you can wait for tomorrow and do it in front of the school li-”

Aria was sure he would have said something along the lines of ‘like everyone else did’, but at the thought of that, ice stuck her chair to the floor and spread out. Some of the parchments on his desk started smoking- one burst into flame-, the window cracked and then opened, the fire in the heart flared dangerously, and one of the tables collapsed, spilling the contents on the floor.

“Well. Might I assume that you would prefer doing it tonight?”

She nodded.

“Alright then. Perhaps we should call the other house-heads.”

“Do you know how the sorting works?” Mcgonagall asked.

“Mrs. Weasley and Percy said that there was a sorting hat. The twins said…”

“Something less believable?” Dumbledore said, taking an old, weathered hat from a shelf.

Aria nodded.

“Did they say something about troll-wrestling?” the hat asked, a tear near the seem moving as its mouth.

“Yes.”

“I thought they might.”

“Why did you think that?”

“Because one of them thought that the sorting was much less difficult than he’d hoped, and I asked him what he’d thought he would have to do.”

“Oh.”

“So, all you need to do is put me on your head and let me take a look around.”

The ice that had just been vanished- it was a lower priority than the parchment and books- started coming back.

“Are there any rules? Could you just tell anyone about what you saw? What’s-”

“I’m not allowed to tell anyone anything personal.”

“Define personal.”

“Well, I might tell them you’re an inquisitive girl, but I couldn’t tell them what your favorite food is.”

That didn’t make it too much clearer to Aria.

“How do you work? Mrs. Weasley said she didn’t really know, but-”

“It’s easier to sort a person if they put me on.” the hat suggested. “Might be easier and faster to explain things to you as well.”

Hesitantly, she put the hat on.

_ “It’s also easier to sort you if you don’t barricade your mind.”  _ the hat said.

_ Sorry? _

_ “Well, in answer to your question-” _

The hat explained how it worked to Aria. it was some very thorough enchantment.

_ “And now I need to sort you.” _

Aria could feel her magic going haywire again.

McGonagall and Dumbledore were discussing it. Aria could hear some other voices too, but she focused more on the one in her head.

_ I’m not really comfortable with people going through my mind. _

_ “Understandably. But it is somewhat necessary. And I’d rather not try to break through your defenses.” _

Aria slowly disabled some of her traps behind her first line of defense, then released the wall itself.

_ “Interesting… Oh dear.” _

_ What? _

_ “Well, you seem to know much more than anyone else I’ve sorted ever has. You might need to skip the first year entirely.” _

_ Really? _

_ “Yes. and you also still have some kind of block up. Which makes it very difficult for me to do my job.” _

_ What if I let down all of them? Except for a few things I’d rather not have in my mind at all? _

_ “That might work.” _

Aria took them down from the inside, setting things up so she could reactivate them quickly.then she took down the one in the way of the sorting hat.

_ “Interesting…” _

Having it in her mind was disconcerting. More frightening was having none of her mental shields up.

_ “Let’s see… You’d make an obvious fit in Ravenclaw… But you have a strong work ethic, an interestingly strong sense of loyalty and justice as well, which could be developed in Hufflepuff. That might also help you with your ‘shell’ as your parents call it, though you don’t seem to have the patience that is usually expected of the badgers… _

Aria frowned mentally and physically, as the hat paused on a particularly uncomfortable memory where she’s thrown a math-book across the room in frustration, letting it tear through a paper wall before combusting as it reached the ground. The hat continued.

_ … Slytherin could help you develop your ambition and cunning- yes, you have them. Have you cut apart your mind so neatly that you forgot?” _

_ I guess I just didn’t think about it. _

_ “Hmm… I could put you in Gryffindor as well.” _

_ How would you rationalize that? _

_ “You would either rise to the occasion and grow magnificently, or be crushed by the ferocity the lions sometimes show. You do have the courage and inner strength they’re known for, but… it almost looks like you’ve been purposefully trying to  destroy that.” _

_ I have. _ It was guilty thought, not one she wanted the hat to see, but he did.

_ “Why?... what’s this over here?” _

_ I said I would keep a few things still hidden. _

_ “No, not that… Child, you’ve had your memory tampered with.” _

_ I know. I agreed to it. _

_ “Why?” _

_ Because someone died. Someone close to me, I guess. _

That seemed to be enough for the hat, who was able to learn the rest of the tradition from less prominent  thoughts.

_ “There’s another section here. I nearly missed it. What is it?” _

_ A secret. _

The hat seemed to understand what all was tangled up in that, even if the specifics were caught up in the capsule.

_ “Well… I think perhaps I should rule out Gryffindor. You could do well there, but the chances of your breaking are too high. Maybe if we re-sorted in later years, I could put you there, but… Hufflepuff might have the same problem. Their efforts to bring you out of your shell might push you further in… Slytherin or Ravenclaw? The obvious choice is Ravenclaw, of course, but would it really be the best for you? Not just now, but later as well? And for the others in that house, let me see…” _

Aria hadn’t really thought about how much effort sorting took, but even if she had, she doubted she would have figured it out.

_ “If I put you in Ravenclaw, you would need to spread out on your own… given your past efforts, it might not be best to rely on you to do that on your own…” _

_ Gee, thanks. _

_ “I’m being honest.” _

_ Which is why I was only partially sarcastic. _

_ “Let’s see… you’ve already properly met two people, outside of the Weasley family… one Gryffindor, one Slytherin…” _

_ I do? _

_ “Harry Potter and Draconis Malfoy.” _

_ What does that mean? _

_ “Oh, and if we include young Longbottom, that’s three… it means that if you do this properly, you might be able to finally unify the houses properly.” _

Aria’s mind shot of in several different directions at once, wondering what the hat was for if the houses were meant to be unified, the original founders intent, what the hat was trying to get her to do, and so on.

_ “While the founders created the houses, they never intended for them to be as separate as they are now. Or by any means as separate as they have been, and may become in the future. It was an organizational feature for the most part. It’s gotten… complicated.” _

_ What if houses weren’t sorted until after a  year or two? _

_ “Then people would be at a bit of a loss to figure out how to sort them into classes.” _

_ Oh. _

_ “But I do think that we sort too soon. Anyway, for your placement…” _

Aria waited. While the hat thought, she reset her defenses, pushing him out. She used several different methods of mind-shielding, from Occlumency and Guardians to Separation.

“Oh, Ravenclaw, I suppose.” the hat said out loud after a while.

“You suppose?” Dumbledore asked, surprised, while Aria took off the hat.

“Oh, it’s the obvious choice… But I’d like to see what the other houses could help her to become.”

“So she could be in any house?” McGonagall asked.

“She could. And she could do well in them too, if they don’t completely destroy her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” a squat witch asked.

The other newcomers- which Aria assumed were house-heads- were a short, skinny man with wispy hair; and a man of noteworthy high with shoulder length black hair.

“That’s for Aria to say, if she chooses.” the hat said. “I’m not sure Ravenclaw's the best place for her, in all honesty…”

“Why?” the very short man asked.

“‘ _ For this is the purpose of life-to grow, to learn, to excel, to become.’  _ ” Aria quoted softly. Gobldygook. One of the softer dialects. She didn’t know all of them, just some of the most common one (most common in Asia and the Americas, anyway), and the one used by most of the goblin philosophers.

He looked at her, surprised. “You speak the goblin tongue?” he asked, also in gobledygook. He was using a dialect slightly different from the one she knew, and it took her a moment to piece it together.

“Some.”

“For what purpose did you learn it?” he shifted to the softer one. It was easier for her.

“To learn.” She shrugged. “If honored Sliftshay was wrong, I don’t know what the purpose of life would be.”

“You agree with his philosophy?”

“So far as I have studied it, yes.”

“‘Then why in the world would you not be a Ravenclaw?”

“Because perhaps I could learn more by being in a different house.” Aria shrugged slightly.

“So even were you to be placed elsewhere, the reasons at heart would be…”

“Yes.”

The others in the room looked at least a bit confused. Dumbledore looked a bit amused.

The short man looked thoughtful. “So, despite being at heart purely Ravenclaw, you and the sorting hat might consider other houses for the experience?” He was speaking English now.

“Something like that.”

“Well, Fillius, it looks like she’s been sorted.” McGonagall said.

_ Right. Filius Flitwick. Charms professor, head of Ravenclaw house, and not that much fun to prank. I don’t know why I remember that last part. Well, probably because it struck me as odd, although coming from the twins it probably shouldn't have... _

“Yes…”

A bit of nervous ice was creeping out around her feet.

“Well, follow me then.” The diminutive professor said.

Aria obeyed, going down the escalator stairs, which were now going down.

They wove quickly through hallways lined with sleeping portraits. Patches of floor otherwise black were silvery white with moonlight.

“Normally I would give a welcoming speech to new students after the opening feast, when we’re all gathered in the common room. Speaking of which, are you hungry?”

Aria shook her head.

“Good. Well, in that case. Welcome to Ravenclaw. We expect you to give your best efforts but not to be too proud to ask for help should you need it. Other houses common rooms are guarded with passwords, ours has a riddle. If you can’t answer it, you’ll need to wait for someone who can. Breakfast starts at six and ends at eight, when classes start. There will be a schedule on your desk in the morning. On the back will be a temporary map to show you the way to your classes for a while. It will fade eventually. If you need anything, ask for help, but do try to work problems out for yourself first. Intentional magic outside of classes is against the rules with a few exceptions. And I apologize if I seem distant at the moment, but it  _ is  _ late. Do you have any questions?” 

“Not at the moment.”  _ not that I can put into words. _

Then there was a tower. The spiral stairs wound tightly and the professor didn’t slow on their way up, though he did glance at her occasionally as if to see how well she was keeping up.

She was keeping up just fine, only getting a touch dizzy before they reached the end.


	6. morning follows night...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria gets situated, meets one of her roommates, eats, and heads off to her first class- the infamous, dreaded Potions.

At the end was a door.

Not a normal door, nor yet a fancy door or even one with a handle or keyhole.

It was a gate-door, and that meant wood enchanted to unbreakability and some kind of spoken key.

Unlike the predictable ‘say friend and enter’ of Tolkien's work, however, there was a bronze knocked shaped like an eagle. Its wings spread dramatically to the ends of the door, curling away at the tips and main joint. The tail dug into the door, and the head protruded imposingly. The knocker itself was gripped in the bird’s talons.

It was a very nice piece of work.

Professor Flitwick reached out and knocked firmly.

The beak opened and a soft, musical voice spoke.

“What is in front of you but never here?”

The professor looked at her. “Would you like to try?”

She cocked her head a bit. “The future.”

“Nicely done.” the door opened.

The room it revealed was a wide circle, with gracefully arching windows against the dark sky. The windows were hung with blue and bronze fabrics, softly shimmering in the firelight and the draft from the open door.

The ceiling was a dome painted to match the night sky. If she had her guess, it matched the night sky perfectly, though she wasn’t familiar enough with the stars in this section of the world to be completely sure. There was a carpet on the floor, in a bit lighter blue than the sky outside with stars woven in. bookshelves sat against most of the walls. A few desks were set out, along with several chairs, tables, and a couch or three. In a space built into the wall opposite them was a white marble statue of a woman.

The room was empty so far as people were concerned, until Flitwick stepped into it. Aria followed him. There were two doorways on either side of the room, allowing the three doors and the statue to divide the room into neat quarters.

Flitwick explained the the two doors led to the girls and boys dormitories, respectively, and that he’d need to speak with the prefects.

Aria only knew what a prefect was from the excited explaining Percy had given her after her got his badge.

She stood a little awkwardly in the room as Flitwick sent a Messenger to the two Prefects- a silvery cat. A little while later, two half-asleep children came into the room.

“Professor?” the boy asked, then yawned.

“This is Aria. she arrived after the sorting due to various circumstances. She is now the newest member of the house of Ravenclaw.”

“So now we’ve got eleven first years.” The girl said sleepily. “Thanks for letting us know.”

The professor nodded.

The girl led Aria through the door to the girl’s dormitory, up more stairs and to two doors right next to each-other. She peeked in them both, saw an empty bed in one, and led them in.

“Here you go. Flitwick told you all the important things, right?”

“I think so.”

“Any questions?”

“Not right now.”

“Alright then. Good-night.”

Then the girl left her. There were three beds in the room. Aria went to the empty bed and found her trunk. She changed into her pajamas and cast scourgify onto her mouth. The downside of her version of oral care was that it always left her mouth very dry, even after drinking water.

She climbed into the bed, and decided it was far too soft. She sank down in it as if it were made of cotton candy. And it shifted underneath her.

She rolled out, taking the blanket and sheets with her, and rolled underneath the bed.

She wrapped herself in the blanket like it was a cocoon, and fell asleep.

She woke up a few hours later and had the gripping fear that she didn’t know where she was.

It was dark, far darker than she was used to. There was no wind, nothing to tell her the darkness was just clouds over the sky. Just darkness.

She could feel stone through the sheets- she’d kicked away the blankets while she was asleep- and couldn’t help but wonder what happened to her bed.

She sat up, cracked her head on the bed above, and remembered. She rolled out from underneath the bed and changed into her uniform.

She hated it.

It consisted of a long, loose black robe and another robe, open at the front, with blue around the edges. There was a bronze belt and… a distinct lack of mobility. The robes were loose enough for walking, maybe even running, but not for anything else she might want to do, like catch herself should she fall off one of the legendary moving staircases or kick someone displaying an extreme lack of courtesy. She pulled off the first layer and wrapped in the second one like it was a bathrobe, pulling some black pants on underneath.  She pulled a seam ripper (which she had from the time Lynn had insisted on giving everybody a sewing kit for new years) out of her trunk and slit down the sides of the inner robe. The seam ripper turned out to be enchanted. It took out the section she wanted neatly, leaving her hands behind as it did.

_Handy. I’ll have to send Lynn a thank-you note._

She ran a quick running stitch to hem the edges, again appreciating the enchantments on the tools- tools which, truth be told, she’d never used before. Even with the enchantments, she stabbed herself several times. She sucked on her fingers a bit, then tied off the thread and put away the needle and spool, managing to stab herself again in the process.

_This is ridiculous. I’m learning how to sew. Soon._

She out on the robe again, keeping the pants underneath, and experimented with a hooking kick. Nothing tore or caught, so she called it good.

She brushed her hair, cleaned her mouth again, used a similar spell instead of a proper shower, and started putting her ‘pocket things’ away. A pocket knife or three, a dagger (which actually went inside her pants, in a sheath strapped to her leg), her wand (in a wand-sheath on her arm), a piece of chalk, a bezoar in a time-strand pouch, a notebook and pencil. She braided her hair and tied it off with her silver ribbon.

She went to the window and opened it, letting cool air in. she looked out and down at the grassy field below and smiled.

She went back to her trunk and grabbed her swords and staffs, collected in her weapon bag, then went back to the window.

She climbed onto the sill, standing upright, then stepped out. She fell, air flying around her. She closed her eyes, aligning her breathing with her magic with the wind.

She kicked herself out, away from the castle, then swung around, slowing her fall a few feet from the ground.

She fell the rest of the way and landed solidly on her hands and feet, rolling sideways to her feet.

Her varying weapons clattered a bit.

She set about her usual practices- unarmed forms, weapon forms, stretching, techniques, falling, and so on. She gathered her things back up and leapt into the air, aligning her breathing again.

A few people had been surprised that she learned Musul-Mabeob (martial art magic) so easily. She didn't see why. It was harmonics, like wands.

She moved through the air, to her window. She kicked over and in, flying through the window and landing neatly on the ground. It felt more like swimming. She closed the window.

“I was wondering why that was open.”

Aira jumped, turning.

One of the other girls was up, which made sense as she’d been out for two or three hours.

“I didn't close it, ‘cause I figured there was a reason. I don’t think we met last night, I’m Cynthia Wyrding.”

Cynthia Wyrding held out her hand. She had short, straight brown hair that was dripping onto her robes.

Aria took it and they shook briefly.

“So, you’re the kid that froze everything, then got lost on the way over?”

Aria gave her a confused look.

“Everyone was talking about it.” she shrugged. “I’m not a stalker or anything. How do you fly like that, anyway?”

“Musul-Mabeob.”

“What?”

“It’s a branch of magic. Martial Art magic.”

“Um… Okay. wait, so you’ve been learning magic before you came here?”

“Yes.”

“Has everyone from magical families? I thought that was against the rules! If it’s just me, then-”

“I think the rules are different in the americas. That’s where I did most of my magical studies up to this point.”

“Oh, okay. What’s america like?”

“Which part?”

“Where you lived, obviously.”

“Um… Well, it’s… not the same. Drier, left to its own devices.”

“Huh. What are the people like?”

“Um… they were people, I guess.”

“Oh.” she was clearly disappointed.

Aria went back over to her bed and took out her braid, tying back her hair the way she normally had it- a bit pulled back on the right side, held with the ribbon, her two feathers hanging against her back.

“Does everyone do that feather thing? I thought that was old-fashioned or something.”

“Just me. Except for certain ceremonies and things.”

“Okay.”

Aria put her weapons away -the ones she didn’t keep on her, anyway-and out on her belt, strapping her box of wand-cores to it.

If asked, she really couldn’t have said why she kept them with her. It was just a thing she did, like wearing the feathers or keeping her hair long.

She checked the paper with her schedule and looked at her watch. Six thirty five -or was it seven. Class wasn’t until 9. Strange, she could’ve sworn Flitwick said they started earlier. Maybe he was just tired.

“So, are you excited for school?”

Aria shrugged.

“I know I am.” Cynthia said, not waiting for a proper response. “My mom told me I wasn’t used to learn too much about magic until school. That’s why I woke up so early, because I’m excited. I’ll probably sleep in till eight forty five after I calm down. I’m not usually this energetic either, but I’m just way too excited and maybe a bit scared too.”

She was talking fairly quickly.

Aria sat on her desk and started meditating.

The world melted away. Cynthia’s babbling; the hard desk beneath her; the slightly stuffy, in-lived in smell; faded into the background and beyond.

The only thing that existed was her breathing. The sound of it, the feeling as she pulled air into her lower abdomen area, moving air against her lips.

And then, as she shifted her focus, there was also magic.

It thrummed softly, resonating at the same rhythm as her breathing. Like wands, it was a sensation different from the normal ones. Not a sound, or a scent. Not an image, or a taste, nor yet truly a feeling like the hard desk. Not an emotion either.

It was… something… else.

She returned to her breathing. The sensation of magic- which she always felt, just not always so strongly- faded away.

She opened her eyes, coming back. She blinked, then hopped off of her desk.

She checked her watch again, then examined her schedule. Her first class was potions, at nine. Then there was a section labeled ‘culture studies, magical and mundane’ at eleven. Lunch was at twelve, then an open period at one. Transfiguration was at three and dinner was at five.

She put her books for potions in her bag, along with her cauldron (bags of holding were terribly useful) and her other equipment for that class. She had books for the ‘culture’ class as well and put those in, adjusting the separators in the bag. It was more than a bit confusing, to say the least, especially when she took the time to wonder why a bag of unknown internal size had dividers- the spacing between which varied regularly.

Prepared for her classes, she went down to the great hall for breakfast. It was a large room, matching the entryway in dramatically enormous size. The ceiling matched the sky, and there were five tables- four long ones running the length of the hall under banners naming the four houses, and one at the head of the room, where several teachers were sitting.

The great hall was mostly empty at the moment, but the few people that were in there turned to look at her as soon as she came in- except for one or two people too preoccupied with eating. She went to the ravenclaw table and ate a piece of toast and a strip of bacon very quickly, then left for class.

She followed her map, reaching the potions classroom (which was in the dungeons, apparently) with several minutes left before class began.

Then she noticed she’d accidentally put up a speed charm. She took it off and looked around the classroom. There were several chairs set up in sets of two with a cauldron stand between them. Under the cauldron stands were small piles of wood, ready for burning- but only with magical means, as Aria figured one would try with matches or an oil-light all day and not get much of a flame out of the tinderless stacks.

Several other students were already there, some Ravenclaws and some Hufflepuffs, scattered around the room. The front row was full. The other rows had people in them, but weren’t full.

Aria sat on the far end of the second row to the front. No-one was in the seat next to her, which was just fine by her.

She pulled out her cauldron and set up her things.

Neatly.

Grid-aligned.

She adjusted the position of her silver dagger, measuring things with her fingers.

“Are you OCD or something?”

Aria looked up. A Ravenclaw girl was watching her critically.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“Are you OCD? OCD means ‘obsesive com-”

“pulsive disorder.” Aria finished with her. “No. I just like being organised. OCD is much more severe.”

The girl didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? The book I read the other day has an OCD character in it, and he-”

“Most people don’t understand OCD.” Aria said. “It’s not a little thing. OCD is exactly what it says it is- a disorder, something that interferes with day-to-day life. It’s a compulsion, not a little thing you like doing. And it’s an obsession, which means it’s on your mind all the time. Some people have to wash their hands very thoroughly many times a day, rubbing their hands raw, get door and light-switches with their feet because of it. Some people- I read in a psychology book about a woman who had to get dressed in the exact same order every morning, convinced that if she didn’t, something horrible would happen to her husband. It’s _not_ a character quirk, it’s a kind of mental disease.”

The girl frowned. “Really? ‘Cause the book I read really didn’t make it sound like that at all.”

Aria shrugged. “And a lot of books make it seem like sleep talking and walking happen during the dream-phase of sleep, but they really don’t.”

“Don’t they?”

“Np. dreams are in the REM stage, and during that time you’re actually paralysed to keep from acting out dreams. Sleep activities like that are in stage… four. I think. Was it stage three?”

“Huh.” the girl went and sat down by someone else.

Ice covered the stone beneath Aria’s feet as she realised she’d just gone full- lecture-rant. She checked her watch again. Almost time to start.

She pulled out her parseltongue book and started reading it. To herself, not out-loud. Some people here had strange ideas about snakes.

Around the time she started going cross-eyed, the quiet, nervous chatter died.

Aria looked up, uncrossing her eyes and putting the book away.

Severus Snape, potions professor, potions master, and head of Slytherin house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was going to call the martial art magic Wuxia (or maybe Wuxio, which is so far as I can tell doesn't actually exist), but I looked that up and it didn't quite work for me. Think it's close enough, or should I keep the more awkward- but more accurate(I think- I just used Google translate)- musul mabeob? Or something else? input would be greatly appreciated. (and since I've only written it twice so far, if I change it I will change it... all of it...)


	7. Potions, Psionics, and...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dreaded potions class.  
> It really wouldn't be that bad if people followed the instructions properly- after all, close may count in horseshoes, bocce, and nuclear warfare, but it doesn't count in magic or chemistry- so why in the world would is count for where the two meet?  
> A psionic battle.  
> Aria's good... for her age. For her age she's very, very good compared to most eleven year olds in Britain. But...  
> If only people would follow instructions.  
> Oh, and we officially meet dear Hermione.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I didn't get any feedback on what to call the martial art magic thing, so I decided to use the names interchangeably. I'll explain why Aria does it... eventually... and if you can figure it out, you can have one of the rare, imaginary, cyber-chip cookies. Not to be confused with chocolate chip cookies, which are amazing.

Professor Snape still had shoulder-ish length black hair and black robes, not that Aria had at all been expecting him to get a haircut between midnight and the first class. His sleeves were tighter than the uniform’s sleeves were, which Aria noted as useful in not knocking things over and getting caught on things. His robes billowed dramatically as he strode to the front of the room.

The first thing he did was instruct everyone to change their seating arrangement so that everyone had a partner and there were no blank spots in the first two rows.

Aria wrapped her sleeves around her arms-not tightly, but not too loosely either- and then rolled them up a bit, locking it temporarily in place. Her wand was easily accessible in its sheath on her arm without being obviously there- she doubted many first years had wand sheaths (or holsters, or whatever people were calling them), and even pushing that aside,  you didn’t walk around with your wand showing unless you were expecting trouble.

The other students settled, a nervous Hufflepuff sitting next to her.

“Hi.” she said.

Aria nodded to her, then put her hair in a braid with a flicker of magic.

Snape started talking again, making sure everyone was there-  _ Which maybe they should do more often. _ He didn’t talk very loud, but everyone heard and understood what he was saying.  _ Handy skill, that. _

He finished, then truly bagan.

“I understand that this is your very first class. Perhaps you were hoping to try some wandwork. That will wait for other classes, aw there is very little wand-waving in here. Potion making is an exact art and a subtle science, but I don’t really expect many of you to understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron, the shimmering fumes that rise above it, or the delicate yet overwhelming power these potion contain, creeping through veins, ensnaring sense, bewitching minds, destroying, healing… I can teach you to bottle fame, brew glory, and even stopper death- if you will learn. Which, unfortunately, most students don’t.”

_ Aunt Rose-Pine was giving a very similar speech to the gathered cousins. She ended by saying that potion making had to be completely exact. None of the ‘close enough’ that could be found in many other ‘basic’ disciplines of magic… _

_ “Aunt Rose-Pine?” _

_ “Yes Aria?” _

_ “This book mentions something called stopper death. What does… it sounds like it… um…” _

_ Rose-Pine waited. _

_ “It sounds… like it stops death… but isn’t that wrong?” _

_ She smiled. “Stopper death pauses it for a moment, slowing the advance. It doesn't stop death like the name implies, but it does give you time to get the patient to proper medical care for further treatment.” _

_ “Oh.” _

_ “It’s also very dangerous, to make and use.” Rose-Pine’s face was severe. _

_ Aria nodded, biting her lip. The animagus fiasco had been months ago! _

_ “Dp you understand?” _

_ Aria nodded. “Yes, aunt Rose-pine. Thank you.” _

_ Rose-pine nodded. “Anything else?” _

_ “Are there any other potions with misleading titles?” _

_ “Yes. Bottled fame, for example, is one of the more-well- famous ones. It gives the illusion of fame, convincing those who breathe the fumes that the person the potion is tuned to is well known for whatever reasons- and people come up with some interesting ones.” _

_ “Is there any way to stop it?” _

_ “Some people have been able to resist using psionics, however it is very difficult to tell that you are being affected.” _

_ “Which makes defence that much harder…” _

_ “Yes. However, it is another difficult potion and very expensive for those who would buy. You’ll probably never need to worry about it. But if you ever think you do, just stay alert.” _

_ “Okay.” _

Aria blinked, pulling herself back to the present, and realised that Snape had been asking students at random about common potions and components, though it didn’t seem like he expected anyone to know the answers.

_ What are you playing at? Are you letting us know how much we don’t know, or trying to intimidate us? Or are you just being a jerk? I don’t understand… _ She did know why they used

silver knives for potions instead of any other kind. The same reason you  _ never  _ used silver in wandcraft, why magic-fearing royalty had used it on utensils when they could afford it, and…

“Because of its high magical properties.” A ravenclaw across the room answered with false confidence.

Aria smothered her laughter in her sleeve.

“It isn’t a sin to say you don’t know something.” Professor Snape said. “Would anyone else care to guess?”

Silence.

Aria hesitantly raised her fingers. Then her entire hand, at a rate of about an inch a minute.

“Carver?”

“Silver deadens magic. Ingredients derived using silver tools are much less likely to have residual magic collected from ambience that would upset the balance of the potion.”

Snape looked slightly surprised.

One or two whispers started, then vanished as Snape glared at the speakers.

“Assuming the german was in line with the english, that was correct.” Snape said.

Aria blinked, then thought through what she’d said. As he’d said, she had slipped into german. And a little greek.

“Should she repeat it?” One of Aria’s room-mates asked.

“Perhaps…” Snape looked at her. There was something she recognised in his black eyes. And it wasn't just the color, though nearly everyone she’d grown up with had dark eyes. She wasn’t sure what it was. “If you could.”

Aria’s eyes flicked around nervously. Making sure she spoke English, she tried again. “Silver… deadens magic. I mean, it’s more complicated than that, but- and most ingredients and things had collected ambient magic from the area around them. Using a silver knife draws that out so that it doesn't upset the potion’s balance and potentially keeps it from doing something dangerous like melting your cauldron, exploding, or giving off highly poisonous, invisible, scentless fumes.

“Did she read a warning manual or something?” someone whispered.

She stared at the floor, watching patterns grow in the frost underfoot.

“Correct. A point for Ravenclaw.” He then moved on to the lesson, setting instructions on the chalkboard for a fairly simple potion for boil-curing. Aria wondered briefly if maybe an even simple potion might have been used at first-one that was less picky, so far as explosive potions went- and put the thought out of her mind as she and her partner started working on it.

“No, not yet!” she hissed as her partner tried to add crushed snake fang.

“Why?”

“Now.”

“What?”

Aria grabbed it and added it for her. “You were ten seconds too early!”

“So? It’s close enough, right?”

“No! There is no ‘close enough’ in potion brewing! ‘Close enough’ only counts in horseshoes, bocce, and nuclear weapons. Ten seconds early could have started it towards a nice poison, or maybe an explosive if you-”

“Okay, okay, I get it! Geeze. What’s your problem? Did you memorize the entire textbook or something?”

“No. Are the porcupine quills ready?” Aria took the cauldron off the fire and started counting.

“Yes, why?”

“Add it on thirty.”

“Thirty?”

“Yes. nine, ten, eleven, twelve-”

“Which language is that?”

Aria blinked and switched to English, stirring the cauldron once in a star-swirled pattern.

“The instructions don’t say-”

“Thirty.”

The girl rolled her eyes and added the quills, splashing the potion out.

It landed on Aria’s hands, burning as the drops spilled down her hands, leaving red marks- and then froze.

Aria thrust the ladle toward her partner and ran to the sink. The frozen potion was turning black- a little fuzzy speck creeping out in feathered tendrils in the droplets.

She pulled the frozen partial-potion off her hands and vanished it, letting the water-which didn’t vanish- fall into the sink. The  she returned to her seat.

Someone’s cauldron was smoking -green.

Which was not something it was supposed to be doing.

Then the smoke turned yellow. Orange-

Ice flared up around Aria as the cauldron exploded, making a wall between her and the errant potion.

The splatters melted through the ice, but more came just as quickly. Ice spread across the floor, freezing potion that had landed on the floor and causing the temperature on the room to drop.

He breath fogged in front of her as she opened her eyes. Her mind raced as she tried to remember what rapidly cooling potions did.

_ There’s no venom in it- or at least there shouldn’t be- the cauldrons might have adverse effects if- no, they’re all pewter… the nettles might cause a problem if they mixed with the quills and beetle- _

The ice exploded as strange plants- icey blue and white- grew out of it at rapid speeds. The ice- nettles grow until they were done- a bit smaller than normal nettles, with hints of black on the icey leaves.

_ -hearts, if the horned slugs were stewed improperly. That  _ is _ an interesting looking plant… why is everyone yelling? _

A few people were screaming. Some of the potion had got on them- and a few very unlucky ones had plants trying to grow on them. Others were yelling to each-other about what they’d just seen. The sound echoed in the stoney dungeon, and the fires went out as Aria’s ice spread. The fire by Aria’s foot went out so quickly that it left an icy representation of its form.

More shouting, more noise, more chaos…

“SILENCE!”

As it turned out, professor Snape  _ was _ capable of yelling.

The noise died like a leaf in a bonfire.

“Everyone effected, go to the hospital wing.” He flicked his wand once, twice, removing the remains of the potion on those that had been splattered, and sending a ribbon of light that floated in the air, presumably showing the way.

Almost everyone left.

Snape cast teleportation a spell at the Ice-nettles, sending them… somewhere. Then he vanished the ice.

“Carver. Your reputation wasn’t merely hearsay, it would appear.”

“I never summoned a frost giant.” Aria said quickly, just in case. She spoke so quickly that her words slurred together a bit.

“I wasn’t referring to  _ that  _ rumour.”

“Okay. good. ‘Cause the amount of magic required to do something like that would probably vaporize me.”

“I’m aware.” Snape said dryly. “I would appreciate it, however, if you didn’t freeze my classroom.”

“Sorry, sir. It happens when I get nervous. Or feel threatened. Or-”

“That was accidental magic!?” the hufflepuff she’d been working with-who had been shielded by her ice-wall- yelped.

“Um… Yes… kind of.”

“Interesting.” Snape flicked his wand a few more times and finished cleaning up the classroom- the people who had left hadn’t bothered to clean up their places before leaving, and the potions still brewing were no longer workable- one was smoking so much that Aria wondered if the contents had lit on fire. He looked at the remnants of his class. “You may use the remaining time to find your next classroom.”

People started leaving as quickly as possible.

Aria beat them.

She was out the door and down the hall before most of them had gotten their cauldrons put away.

She managed to get thoroughly lost before looking at her map. The portraits were all sleeping, and the more she frowned at the map, the more it looked like the section she was on simply wasn’t there. She checked her watch and was relieved- and slightly surprised- to learn that it was only ten thirty.

Remembering some of the stories she’d been told, she looked at the hall through her amulet. One of the doors was really a wall, and part of the wall was really a door.

She walked to the door that wasn’t a wall (however much it might want to be) and opened it.

As soon as she reached for the doorknob, she started wondering what she was doing.

_ There’s nothing there. Why would I try to open a wall? That’s the kind of idiocy that gets people killed.  _ She pulled her hand back and started walking away.

Then one of her sentinels broke through to her.

_ Psionics-mind magics! _

She lifted the amulet again, looking at the door steadily, and went to open it again.

This time she actually touched the doorknob, but it burned her.

_ What’s hiding here? _ She wondered. She pulled out her wand and started working on the enchantments on the door. There were multiple notice-me-nots, several disillusionment charms and straight-out invisibility spells. There were several kinds of discouragement charms- the physical kind, like the burning knob, and the mental kind, which was insisting to her that her task was imposible and she should really go away and find her class. The mental kind were less useful since she could tell them apart from her own thoughts- she’d been training mentally for longer than she could remember- and she’d never really cared for scheduled classes. It  _ did  _ strike a chord when it brought up that she might be late, but at that point she was already ignoring it.

And then she’d disabled it.

She’d gotten most of the normal spells down when the other kind came into full play- psionics. Not just the one she’d already beaten.

It was an invisible battle, mental energy slashing and flaring, trying to pull out thoughts to use against each-other, keeping direct shields up.

And then whoever had set up the spells in the first place linked in.

That was the trouble with fighting psionics.

Whoever it was was much, much stronger than she was.

She retreated, then withdrew before she was defeated. She stumbled away, accidental spells flaring around her as she walked.

She leaned against the wall a little way off, then went to find her class, which she was late to but couldn't really care. It was an explanation of what the class was, then arguments from students who didn’t want this new class.

It all slid by in a blur, the words not quite registering in Aria’s mind. The commotion that arose when the class was dismissed was enough to send her throbbing headache nearly to migraine level. She might have worried about accidental magic if she’d had the mental capacity. But she didn’t. And, as magic was smart enough not to vaporize people who were trying to be nice to it, She didn’t have to.

Everyone was walking one way to get to lunch. She had enough clarity to go a different way. She walking into an empty, dusty classroom, and collapsed into a chair. She dozed throughout lunch, then sat on the desk to try to repair the damage. She was able to repair two of her sentinels and one trap before she exhausted herself again. She slipped onto a different kind of meditation, letting her mind rest.

The door opened.

Her eyes opened.

“Oh-I didn’t know anyone was in here.” A girl said. She had light brown hair that foofed out in a familiar way.

Aria blinked, not saying anything.

“What are you doing?”

“Meditating.”

“Really? Does that have magical applications?”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

“Psionics and Wuxio, mostly. Bu-"

“What are those?”

Aria shrugged. “Different branches of magic.”

“How many are there? Branches I mean?”

“It depends on how you count them.”

“Huh. Which year are you? You’re a Ravenclaw, right? What’s your name?”

Aria’s eyes widened slightly under the barrage. “Um…”

The other girl’s face fell. “Was I talking too quickly? I do that sometimes.”

“Um…”

“Sorry. What’s your name?”

“Aria. Caver.”

“Nice to, meet you. I’m Hermione Granger. I’m trying to figure out where everything is-no-one I’ve spoken with had a map or anything and this place is really confusing.”   
Aria had to translate what Hermione had said before she started understanding it.  _ This is not good. Who  _ was _ that? _

“Are you alright? You look a bit… tired.”

“I… am tired.”

“Alright then. Do you mind if I pace off this room? If no-one else had a map I’ll have to make one.”

Judging from the parchment on her hands, Hermione had already started.

“Um… they have temporary maps on the back of the schedules.”

“I checked- maybe it’s a Ravenclaw-only thing.” Hermione started pacing off the room.

Aria watched her blankly for a little while.

“Oh, um… I know a spell that makes maps of places.”

“You do?”

“Yes…”  _ what was it again?  _ Aria slid off the desk and pulled some parchment out of her bag.

“Which year are you in?”

“Um… first year. I think.”

“You… think?”

“I hit my head on something.”

“Oh. maybe you should go to the hospital wing.”

“I’ll be fine. I just… need a little while…”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“You seem like you’re concussed or something.”

“For the lost on this place, map now appear.” Aria said clearly, not trusting herself to silent casting.

Hermione tried repeating some of the words and completely butchered it. “What language is that?” she asked. “All the spells in out books look like they’re latin. But that doesn't seem like latin.”

“It’s called the Old Tongue. I think there are a few of them.”

“A few… wait what?”

“Um… a few languages called the Old Tongue. They’re each strongest in their own areas. I don’t really know the one for here, I don’t think it’s latin…”

Aria looked at the page, frowning at the weak representation. “Maybe I should go to the hospital wing. That doesn't look right.”

“Could I see?”

Aria handed it to her.

“It... looks fine. A bit faded- is it not supposed to be like that?”

“No. I must have done something wrong.”

“Could I keep it anyway? I was almost fifteen minutes late to my first class because I couldn’t find it.”

“Alright.”

“Thanks. Do you need any help getting to the hospital wing?”

“I should be fine. Thank you.”

“Okay. goodbye.” she left.

_ Is it just my mind being half dead, or does she look shockingly like Elena? _

Aria checked her watch, then went back to meditating. She built another sentinel- part way- and then went to class.

Given her weakened mental state, she really must be forgiven for forgetting a rather important thing- sentinels and traps were always started and finished in the same session for a very good reason.


	8. Danger Zones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The importance of psionic precaution.  
> And sleep-casting. Which is a little like sleep-talking, walking, or singing, except that it's more likely to alienate Room-mates depending on what you cast.  
> In addition, the dangers in over-casting and Aria likes Elantris (which is completely unrelated.)

Aria frowned at her map. _Does it really matter if I make it to class on time? Does it really matter if I go at all? How important can it be- everything they’ll be teaching I can learn on my own, right?_ She put her map down and looked blankly down the hall.

The sentinel she had completed was telling her something was wrong, but the one she hadn’t was making it difficult to care.

She walked aimlessly, turning a corner at random. She picked a door and tried it. It was locked. Nothing a simple opening spell wouldn't fix, but… she just didn’t care. Not only did the door itself hold no interest for her, but the things that she did care about seemed… much less… urgent. Important.

So, of course, she climbed over the stair-railing and clung to the underside, picking disinterestedly at the magicks there.

Then she dropped. She landed on a moving staircase mid-move and then went up it. The shock of landing shook her back into partial sense (and convinced the finished sentinel to pull out the other one), and she hurried to her next class, arriving mid-roll-call and sitting in the only remaining chair on the back row.

“Carver. Thank you for joining us.” Professor McGonagall said.

Aria blushed, picking her feet off the floor (not that they touched it much anyway) so that ice only covered her chair.

“Sorry. I got lost.” she mumbled. She was fairly certain it had been in English, but with the way her mind was going she could have been speaking Chinese- which she didn’t know- for all she knew.

Her head still hurt. Or was it again? She hadn’t really noticed it while she was… disoriented… but that didn’t exactly mean it hadn’t hurt, given that, as she thought back, part of that time had been spent standing on the wall, and she hadn’t noticed. Or maybe she’d just thought that the wall was the floor?

That line of thought was making her head hurt more. She held it in her hands, looking down at her desk. She could feel veins throbbing by her temples, and the pain seemed to follow its pattern.

She closed her eyes, which eased some of the pain- centered around her eyes- but increased how well she could hear. Aria tried to meditate without it being too obvious. It was more difficult without being in the right positions. She was vaguely aware of McGonagall talking. She had no idea _what_ was being said, but was glad that it kept the rest of the class quiet. Her head hurt enough without their noise, and she needed to work the sentinel to a safepoint.

Since she didn’t know how long or how well she would be able to work for, she tore down some of what she had built instead of trying to build up so that if she was interrupted again, she’d be less at-risk than she had been instead of more. Breaking down sentinels was strange. They were creations of thought, and thoughts didn’t really… vanish. They faded, settled-but they were always there still, mixing up with other ones, providing false memories, and being generally confusing. Creating and destroying sentinels, then, was about putting thoughts together in the ways you wanted them, and locking them that way. Maintaining them was another thing altogether.

People were talking again. She forced herself to relax- tensing only made it worse- and did what she should have done before- checked for other psionic problems.

“Are you okay?” someone poked her.

Her eyes snapped open and she turned. “What?” it was Cynthia.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh… Um… yeah. Just... a headache.”

“Do you want to go to the hospital wing?”

“No, I’m… fine…”

“You sure? You seemed all spacy during the other class, then vanished. Now… ...Sure?”

Aria blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“See? I think you should get help. Didn’t you hear what professor McGonagall said?”

“Um… When?”

“Before telling us to start!”

Aria blinked, then realised everyone else was trying to transfigure matchsticks.

“I guess not.”

“She said that transfiguration is very dangerous and that it required proper focus. If your headache is that bad, then you should probably get help.”

“I’ll... be fine.” Aria said, ignoring the fact that her vision was slipping in and out of focus.

“Uh-huh.” Cynthia wasn’t buying it. “Well, transfigure the matchstick, then.”

Aria pulled her wand out. Normally, she would just summon it to her hand, but… _again, ‘normally’._

“What are we supposed to be turning it into?” she asked quietly. Awkwardly.

Cynthia gave an ‘I told you so’ look and said “A needle.”

Normally, that would be child's play.

_The key word there being ‘normally’..._

Aria closed her eyes and took a breath. She opened them and spoke under her breath- she was unfamiliar with the incantation they were using, but didn’t want to risk silent casting. She held in her mind the firm image and memory of the needle she’d stabbed herself with earlier. The match shivered and blurred, like the Weasley twins fake wands had. The color changed from pale tan to bone white. But when the object cleared, it _was_ needle shaped. Aria bit her lip. She hadn’t messed up _that_ badly in years. _I think. How long has it been? I don’t know. I’m pretty_ _sure it’s been a while, though..._

“Wow…” Cynthia said.

Aria looked down.

“Wait, do you usually use needles like this?”

Aria shook her head. “No.”

“Huh… let me try.” Cynthia faced down her own match and spoke, waving her wand.

 _...Well, it…_  is _pointy on one end… and the other end is round… no, wait, that’s just the normal match-head._

Cynthia looked disappointed.

Aria poked at her needle, trying to turn it into steel.

Her headache spread to the rest of her. She felt a bit like she was floating, little pockets of air through her lifting her up. Her desk was covered in dots of blue-turning white- until that was all she could see. Her body felt tingly. And painful. So very, very painful…

Wait, now the white was turning black.

Was someone shouting?

*

There was light behind Aria’s eyelids. It hurt. The rest of her hurt too, but the light wasn’t doing her any favors.

So… bright…

She tried to cover her eyes, but her arms seemed to blame her for their pain and refused to do as she asked. So she commanded, which made her head pound even more, and lifted her hands to her eyes, covering them.

_That’s better._

“How are you feeling, Miss Carver?”

Aria moved her thumbs to cover her ears. “Everything hurts.” She whispered.

“Understandable.”

Slowly, Aria opened her eyes behind her hands. She blinked a few times, squinting. She managed to get them all the way open, but had her hands clamped firmly around her eyes.

“Drink this.”

Aria adjusted her hands to try and see what ‘this’ was. Tears started forming in her eyes, but she was able to see a cup held in front of her. She took it (carefully) and drank it. Slowly. Her throat was sore too. The potion was lukewarm- which in and of itself wasn’t exactly appealing and tingled and fizzed in her mouth. Like soda-pop (which was much too sweet), but each little pop was about as painful as the shock from static electricity. After the first few sips, she’d gotten used to _that_ , and noticed the flavor.

And nearly threw up.

It was a strange cacophony of flavors, mixed together in… unsettling… ways-

It was sickeningly sweet- like a spoonful of white sugar mixed in honey.

It was sour, reminding her of the time she’d tried eating a spoonful of ascorbic acid. Which had only been one time, and had never been repeated.

It was bitter. She didn’t have anything else to compare it to. It was terribly, awfully, bitter.

And, of course, it was also salty. Very salty.

She upended the rest of it as quickly as possible, trying to taste it as little as possible, and discovered the aftertaste.

Which was actually quite nice. A bit like su-jeong-gwa. Maybe a bit less cinnamony.

As the aftertaste faded, so did the pain- of a good deal of it, anyway.

“So. What happened?”

Aria looked up, squinting as her eyes adjusted. An older witch with gray hair-pulled back neatly- and simple, utilitarian robes, was standing on the wall next to her.

_No, wait… I’m lying down, she’d standing normally. Silent wings, this whole wall standing thing is going to drove be crazy._

“Um… What?”

“What happened? You’ve had a potions class, an interrelations class, and part of a transfiguration class. But you were brought in with a depleted core. What happened?”

Aria frowned slightly. “I’m… not sure.” _What does she mean by magical core?_

The witch didn’t seem to believe her. “Your classmates said you displayed quite a bit of accidental magic during the accident in your potions class, but that other than that the only magic they are aware you used was a simple transfiguration spell. That is not enough to deplete someone’s core, unless the accidental magic in question was something completely unprecedented.”

“I just... made ice- a wall between me and the potion. I… did… vaporize? A fire, though- that was interesting. I kind of wish Professor Snape hadn’t vanished it, I would like to examine it more closely.”

The witch frowned.

“There was also… a… door?” Aria said. “It... didn’t really want to be a door, though. It was trying to be a wall. But… it was a door, so I tried to open it…” _I’m not doing this very well, am I?_ “Well, it had a bunch of enchantments and things, which made me curious, so I tried to open it.”

“Where was the door?”

“I don’t know. It’s not on the maps as at all.”

“I see. Some doors are locked for a reason, Carver. If you find one, odds are you probably shouldn't open it.”

 _But if I never opened locked doors, how would I learn anything? Am I supposed to wait until people decide to hand me information? If I did that, then I’d know even less nothing. Wait, that doesn’t quite make sense. If I know nothing, which is more or less accurate, but it’s possible to know less than I do, which it is, then there must be a less-than-nothing. But can you have negatives with knowledge?_ That was making her head hurt again. She nodded distractedly in response to the witch’s mini-lecture.

Aria poked experimentally at her magic. It was… healing. _Probably wouldn't be a good idea to use it anytime soon. My gateway is shot. I wonder if that’s what she meant by core?_

“You’ll need to stay here for the rest of the day, at least.” the witch said.

Aria glanced around the ‘here’, which was a long room with lots of little, narrow beds lined up along the sides. The lights were still very bright, and the entire place smelled weird. _Well, I guess it smells like nothing, and since I’m used to something, nothing is strange. There goes my head again. So… it this the medical wing I’ve been told so much about?_

The witch walked away and Aria sat up. She didn’t know what a school medical wing was supposed to look like, but she supposed this was it. She started meditating, rebuilding her mental energy. And, as the day started to wane, defences.

 _It took me_ years _to build all that up! Just for it to be destroyed on one little fight! Well, at least it’s easier and faster to rebuild than build… but still, who the heck_ was _that?_

*

When she got back to her room, the other girls were talking. They paused awkwardly as she came in.

“You alright?” Cynthia asked.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“Got turned around, forgot to eat lunch.” She lied shamelessly.

Well, not quite shamelessly. But she was getting the feeling that telling people- especially other students- about her psionic battle would be a bad idea.

“Oh. Okay.” they went back to their discussion.

Aria sat on her bed and tried to read. It wasn’t a textbook- she’d flipped through all of those and found them disappointing- just a nice fantasy novel. She needed a break.

_No, Sarene! ‘Spirit’ isn’t a ruthless dictator, he’s trying to help everyone! And he’s your betrothed! Raoden! The one that’s ‘dead’, but you don’t believe them! Remember?_

*

Aria opened her eyes slowly. It was wonderfully, delightfully chilly, and the cold helped clear her eyes more quickly.

She sighed happily, her breath fogging in the air in front of her.

Then she realised she could see the fog, and rolled over to look at her roomates. Diana was holding a torch from the wall, and they were all wrapped in blankets and shivering. Cynthia pulled her hand back from Aria’s shoulder.

“Aria, could you… stop it?” Cynþia asked.

“Stop what?”

“Freezing our room!”

Aria frowned, then rolled out from under her bed.

There was ice. Ice on the floor, frost on the walls…

She pulled her wand out of her sleeve and vanished it.

“Sorry.” she mumbled.

“Seriously, Aria? I know you don’t have much control over you magic, but  dream-casting?”

“Sleep-casting. It actually doesn’t occur during dreams.” Aria said, her tiredness coming back without the cold.

“Whatever. Aria, you need to get some level of control.”

“Sorry. I’ll see what I can do.” _Though I haven’t sleep-cast since… well, there was that time after… when Elena died, but before that there was… when I threw that math book through the wall because I couldn’t understand it… a few nights after the animagus incident… when I was trying to learn Gobbldygook… and sylvan… Irish… while I was going through those riddle books..._

“Thanks.” Diana said, then yawned before going back to her bed.

Aria watched them go, then summoned a single snowflake in her hand, letting it fall slowly before melting in the heat of her palm. She sighed, then got out a sheet of parchment and a brush- she was too tired to fiddle with quills.

She scribbled a note to herself to send a letter to Lynn, hoped it would be legible in the morning, then went back to sleep.

Her head still hurt. Or was it again?


	9. 'Dark' Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so Aria's got a gift for languages. But she does still get frustrated sometimes...  
> Blood-traits are fun, and names are silly, but I don't think anyone in their right mind would name their kid 'draconious' without a good reason. Like blood-traits.  
> Also, the door. And what is behind it.  
> (No, it's not a three headed dog named fluffy! That's a different door!)

She set her book down firmly in frustration. _The introduction warned of this… so why am I so upset that I’m struggling?_ She sighed, resting her head in her hands.   _Was I really expecting all languages to come easily?_ She straightened, taking a deep breath. _Well. I guess I’ll need to find a bloodline-speaker. Let’s see… Draco said that one or two of the ancient and noble houses have bloodline parselmagic, right? Which ones?_

She put her book away and went to the library, nodded a hello to the librarian- a middle-aged witch who wore her reddish-blonde hair pulled almost as tightly back as McGonagall did- and went to the political section.

The librarian (whose name-tag read ‘Madam Pince) looked suspiciously after Aria. it took most students a much long time to figure out where anything was. And learning the organizational system… well, the first few times, Aria had gotten lost, but she had quickly discovered that the topics were organized in an inside-out alphabetical pattern, starting with ‘n’ and ‘m’ near the front and ending with ‘a’ and ‘z’ near the back.  The forbidden section had its own little section in a back corner (interrupting ‘wand techniques’), which Aria hadn’t really explored. Yet.

She found the section on politics, and searched for a promising subsection. She found a book titled ‘Blood-trait politics (a compendium of blood lines, traits, and the history of politics surrounding them)’ and flipped through it. Despite its promising title, it didn’t look like it would have what she was looking for.

She browsed that section for a while, didn't find anything promising, and wondered if madam Pince might know of a book with the desired information- the kicked herself mentally before going back to a book on the ancient and noble houses genealogy.

She almost found what she was looking for on one of the first pages. Apparently Merlin’s line had contained parselmagic, but it had been lost. Similarly, the Slytherin line had been lost, although their parsel-speech was much more prominent- Merlin been the first in five generations to display the gift, but it seemed the Slytherins had had it in almost everyone. A little while later, she found the Perevel line had had it- very recessively, with the closest two speakers nine generations apart. The Perevel line (or the one that was recorded for the longest time) had joined with the Potters- an ancient but not noble (at the time) house (the union had given the Potter house Royal status). That line continued down to… _Harry Potter. Dang nab it. Well, he seemed nice enough at Ollivander’s, and at the train-station… but… what am I going to do, walk up and say ‘Hey, Harry, you wouldn’t happen to be able to use an extremely recessive blood trait best known in these parts for dark magic, do you?’ that’d go over_ really _well. Does he even know what parseltongue is?_

Out of curiosity, she turned to the section on the Malfoys. Apparently they had an intuitive sense of the future -not quite seer-level, but enough to make business planning slightly less risky. _Huh._

She flipped through a bit more, but didn’t see any other living lines with the trait. On the next page, the Black line had one of the stranger astrological traits- if a person was born under a certain star or constellation and was named after it, they had a chance of becoming more proficient at a certain magical skill- which one depended on which star or constellation it was. Pegasus was flying, Scorpius was potions, Draconius was either patroni or occlumency (depending on who you listened to), Sirius was flame-based-magic, Gemini was Illusions (unless they were actually twins. One brilliant mother had born twins and named both of them Gemini. It was said they were excellent pranksters, but it was unclear weather that was simply their personalities or if it was  the trait), and many of them were undiscovered, like Lyra, Rigel or… _Someone actually named their child betelgeuse? People are severely messed up.._.

The book showed that Draco’s mother had been a Black, which would explain his name.

_'I need more information... hey, what's a source I can actively question and only get teased a bit in return? ...well, there's the twins... but they're not terribly reliable..._

Aria put the book away and checked her map, which would vanish the next day- their first Saturday. She went to the Gryffindor tower. It was guarded by a painting of a… full-figured (fat) woman in a pink dress, who regarded her curiously.

“You’re a Ravenclaw. You haven’t gotten turned around, have you?”

“No, I’m looking for the Weasley twins. Do you know where they are?”

“They’re not in at the moment, if that’s what you’re asking. Why are you looking for those two troublemakers?”

“I’ve got a question of two for them. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Pansy. Most people just call me the Fat Lady, though.”

“They do?”

Pansy nodded. “I don’t mind so much anymore. But I would prefer Pansy, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t blame you in the slightest.” Aria said. “Is it nice, being a painting?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Pansy said. “I’m not a normal painting- I’ve got a job.”

“And d’you think you like it better that way?”

“Most of the time. Not when I’m woken up in the middle of the night for whichever reasons.”

“Why would you be woken in the middle of the night?”

“Student’s sneaking off for whatever, or coming back from the hospital wing.”

“I see.”

“But the rest of the time, I suppose it’s nice to have something to do- to feel useful. It’s not very often, though, that student will actually talk to me.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. Oh, behind you- the twins.”

Aria glanced back and waved to them.

“It was nice talking with you. Come back some time, would you?” Pansy asked.

“Alright.”

“Hullo, Aria!” One of the twins asked.

“Hello.”

“We’ve been improving our…” the twin glanced at Pansy “The you know what’s. Want to come see?”

“Alright. I’ve got a question for you, though.”

“What kind of question? Caput Draconis.”

“A ‘why is parselmagic considered dark’ kind of question.” Pansy’s frame swung forward, revealing a circular hole.

One of the twins nearly fell backwards out of the hole. “Are you serious?”

“Usually.” She said. “Why?”

“Well, you just seem to know so much about…”

“...Just about everything, so it seems strange that-”

“-You wouldn't know about Parselmagic. Come on.” He gestured her through the hole. She pulled herself up with her hands and swung through.

The Gryffindor common room was… cozy. There were fat, squishy looking chairs and couches, a large thick rug, and heavy drapes. A few people looked over at them as they came through- their mild interest turning to stronger curiosity when they saw a little Ravenclaw with the legendary pranking twins. (Aria still had yet to ask them how they'd gotten that title before their seconds year)

The twins pulled her along cheerfully. “I think you’ll appreciate our up-grade.” One of them said. “You can almost tell what they’re supposed to be.”

“Oh, and we’ve got more ideas too- what’d’y’ make of candies that make you seem sick- get excused from class and then just  take the antidote and voila! You’re out free.”

“That seems dishonest.” Aria said.

“But really, Aria, can you blame us for wanting to escape Binns?”

“No.” The headmaster was still working on finding a replacement for him. “But I’m sure there are better ways.”

“Like?”

“Well… if you don’t want to read something else, you could try daydreaming or something. Work on other homework during that time and suddenly your free-time is a lot more free.”

“Yeah…”

“But you could sell candies.”

“This is a business scheme?”

“Eh. Why not? I mean, we’ll probably graduate someday, if they don’t expel us first-”

“-and then we’ll have to do _something_.”

“So why not help the next generation of pranksters?”

“Besides, if we can get this going before we leave school, we might have a little spending money.”

“And you’d have some advertising worked out already- people might buy your things while here simply for convenience's sake, and then when you leave, if they like it they’d just keep going.”

The twin on her right punched her playfully in the arm. “Now you’re getting the idea.”

“Wait, wait.” Aria stopped. “Do you have any idea how many twelve year-olds have a solid-ish business plan worked out?”

“‘Ish’?” one twin cried, offended.

“Well, you _do_ still need to get it all working. But I’m pretty sure that’s a lot further than most people are at your age. And everyone says you’re just clowns…”

“It does make it easier to experiment without raising Mum’s suspicions.”

“Yeah, I can imagine she wouldn't react well.”

One of the twins pushed open the door to their dorm. “Come on! Wait-”  he glanced around and checked for others. “Just Lee.”

She hesitated, then followed them in (fairly certain that her dad would kill them for inviting her into their dorm room and resolving not to tell him unless… something bad… did happen. But even then, she’d only tell him after cursing them both into oblivion).

They set out a few of their trick wands, showing her what they did- the transfiguration was much nicer; though the rubber duck was still a blackish gray color, not yellow.

Then she poked through their notes, explaining a few things they still had wrong with their prank wands and asking more about their candy plan. Lee Jordan, a boy with long black dreadlocks, poked a bit of fun at the twins for bringing her in, then it was just about dinner time and the entire school had a chance to notice the nearly glowing scarlet color she’d turned his hair.

 _They never did explain about parselmagic… I guess it’s just the superstition they’ve got around snakes… but why is that there?_ She wondered, trying to work out the squiggles that was parselscript before giving up and going back to reading Elantris before her room-mates came in and asked her what she was doing.

*

She found the door that didn’t want to be on Saturday morning, after her morning routine and before breakfast. It was on the sixth floor, west corridor. _Should I try…? Well, maybe the wood trimming here goes in there as well… but do I really want to try that? Especially with no firm anchor point…?_

Aria bit her lip, then sat down and started meditating, reaching out to magic and calling to it, guiding it into a form. The magic resisted, and decided to do something else.

She put out the fire and felt at the door’s defenses, which had been repaired. Some of them had been damaged in the accidental fireburst she’d set off, but it would still be just as hard for her to get through.

She checked her watch, cleaned herself to get rid of the fire-smell, and went down to breakfast.

Her mail- dropped by Chen-Yong, who dropped it on her plate from a few yards in the air, and an owl she didn’t know (who flung it at her and then screeched some as it flew away)- Included the latest news from home (Which she actually didn’t care too much about as it was mostly ‘no-one’s died yet, but Olivia  _nearly_ killed Owen with a broomstick race, adaptations going along fine, Jacob's vanished on one of his camping expeditions’, but it was nice to see her mother’s handwriting again), and a request from Professor Flitwick to speak with her at nine. She glanced up at the staff table, where the teachers were talking, reading their own mail, and eating.

There was also a small package with a note pinned to it, written in Lynn’s unpracticed script. (not that Aria had any illusions about her own handwriting- it was decent, for her age, but she _was_ only eleven.)

The note was… distinctive.

        _Aria,_

_I’m sorry to hear that your magic is acting up again. I hope your roommates are alright._

_This is as much as I could do on such short notice. Hope it helps._

_-Lynn_

_P.S. if you’ve started wetting your bed too, tell mom. That’s not my problem._

Aria raised an eyebrow, then went up to her room to open the package. It held a lightweight, cream-colored nightgown. The fabric was cool to the touch and made her magic still, as if it had fallen asleep. It was a very unpleasant sensation.

 _Good._ she out it away and wrote a thank-you-note to Lynn.

Between that and the meeting, she played her violin for a while. Then she went to find Flitwick's office, putting her violin in her bag of holding, next to the shrunken piano.

She knocked softly on his door and waited, nervously tapping out a simple rhythm onto the side of her leg with her fingertips. _One, two, three, four, five six- spin, right, one, two, three, four- spin, left, one, two, three, four, one-two, three-four, five-six, one-two-three-_

The door opened.

“Hello! Come in, come in!”

Aria did. Flitwick's office was simple, not crowded like Dumbledore’s but not exactly minimalistic, either. There was another door on the side and a desk with a few chairs. Lots of books, some in languages she knew and others in some she couldn’t place- though one of them almost looked like mermish. _Maybe old aquatic? I wonder if I could learn that one..._

“Hello.”

Dumbledore looked up from a book in the corner. From what Aria could see of the cover, it was written in Greek. The headmaster was wearing dark green robes, and an image rose to the front of Aria’s mind without permission. She stifled a laugh, then remembered that the headmaster of Beacon had been killed. That quickly removed all desire to laugh.

“Hello, Aria.”

“Hi.”

She sensed a slight brush against her mental barriers- not an attack or anything, more… like someone was saying hi. Or just checking to see if she had barriers.

“Miss Carver, excellent- tell me, how are your classes going so far?”

Aria’s eyes flickered to the ground for a moment, letting her see that a bit of frost was forming around her feet, then back up to almost meet the small professor’s eyes.

“Um… alright...”

“You don’t sound too certain of that fact.”

 _“If honesty were fully employed, always, there would be no need for psionics. Except, perhaps, to conceal new year’s gifts and the like.”_  Aria could hear the words clearly. She wasn’t sure who had said them, though. The voice was familiar but unplaceable. She took a deep breath- like she was about to sing- and said “Well- first there was the potions class, which went haywire- and it’s not like it was that difficult, the instructions were very clear- though maybe if Professor Snape had explained how exactly the instructions needed to be followed- and then… something and I don’t really remember much of the next couple classes, but then…”

“I was informed that you nearly vaporized during transfiguration.” Professor Flitwick said.

“Yes. There was that.”

“Do you know why?” Dumbledore asked.

Aria frowned. “Overuse of magic? Isn’t that how it always works?”

“Did you use magic outside of your classes?”

“Um- a bit.” _well, okay, a lot, but-_ “I’m not… very.. Controlled.” she said with difficulty, looking back down at the ground, which now had a nice white sheen over it. Her hair slid around her shoulders like a cloak.

“I noticed.”

“Was that bit just accidental, then? Or was there something else?”

Aria looked up at Dumbledore through her hair. “There was a door. I got lost, and… there was a door that… was trying very hard to be a wall.”

“And you tried to go through it.”

Aria tipped her head slightly, narrowing her eyes a fraction. “That was you.” she said quietly.

In French.

“Yes.” Dumbledore said. “Might I ask you why you tried so hard to get through that door?”

“I’m curious. And… Not knowing things bothers me.”

“I see.”

“What is behind that door?”

Dumbledore looked at her steadily. The psionic brush became a bit stronger and she broke eye contact. “Do you really want to know?”

“Is there a reason I shouldn't?” _How do I explain? I’m not good with people how is speaking supposed to happen?  Which is kinda funny. You'd think that I'd be better at talking 'cause I know so many languages... doesn't actually seem to help, though._

“Locked doors usually are that way for a reason.”

“That’s what Madam Pince said.”

“Do you not believe her?”

“If you lock a wasp’s nest in your pantry, won’t you get stung eventually anyways? Unless you clear out the wasps- and then there’s no need to lock the door to begin with.”

“The door hides quite a bit more than wasps.”

Aria shrugged. _I’m pretty sure the principle remains. Aunt Pine originally used it to talk about memory blocks._

Flitwick cleared his throat. “If that mystery has been solved, Dumbledore, may I finish speaking with miss Carver?”

“Of course.”

“What do you think of your classes so far?”

“Honestly?”

“Of course.”

“I… don’t see why others… it’s all so simple. I see others struggling, but… it’s… not like that for me.”

“Could you demonstrate?”

Aria conjured a matchstick, then transformed it. It held form for a few moments, then vanished as transfigured conjurations do. “What is being taught… I don’t know how long I’ve known it. I’ve grown up with these things. It’s… simple. Not simple, just easy. Like walking. I learned how to do it already and now it’s natural, unless I’m really tired or something.”

“Is this true of all your classes so far?”

“Yes. but, that’s only so far- I don’t really know much about herbology in this part of the world, for example, but I don’t know where the classes are starting- if it starts with ‘this is a seed’ or ‘a lot of magical plants are dangerous, like the whomping willow some genius put in the middle of the grounds’, then...”

Dumbledore’s face twitched into a smile, but Aria didn’t notice.

“I see. So, can you think of a solution to the problem?”

“What?”

“Well, you’re ahead of your classmates, but how far is in question. And if we were to move you ahead, it would undoubtedly cause problems for you socially.”

“I see.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

“Yes. ones relating to the subject in question are few, and ones that are slightly rational are… well, there’s one or two of them, but they wouldn't hold much water.”

“We’ll think about it then.” Professor Flitwick said, “and perhaps discuss it again next week?”

“Alright.”

“Dumbledore, if there’s anything else you wanted to tell her…?”

They looked at each-other.

“You really want to know what’s behind that door?”

“It’s driving me crazy.”

“Alright, then.  On the condition that you promise not to tell anyone- including your parents- about it.”

“Okay.” Aria rubbed the inside of her right forearm behind her back, assuring herself that the runes were still there.  
She wouldn’t need to tell her parents anything.

*

Dumbledore opened the door.

The wood inside the room was firmly dead. No hint of life of magic came from it. _Is it petrified?_

There were some desks and chairs, some old books sitting forgotten and covered in dust. It was an old classroom. _One with dead wood. And not even one cobweb hiding in the cracks._ She thought, and carefully picked up one of the abandoned textbooks.

Introduction to Necromancy, sixth edition.

“Necromancy?” She asked, turning to Dumbledore.

He nodded. “The classes went far beyond anything you would be able to find now. Certainly beyond inferi or even… darker things.”

“Horcuces, phylacteries, Soul-binding?” Aria asked.

“Simple in comparison.”

Aria paled.

But that didn’t stop her from pocketing one of the textbooks, or leaving behind a strand of hair on her way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dumbledore's not evil, just senile. And... yeah... not sure why he thought telling Aria about necromancy would be a good idea... I mean, he's still sane enough to run the school, right?  
> Also, no, Aria's not going to go evil from learning about necromancy. It's mostly just an excuse to let me reference... a certain book...


	10. Snakes and Sky-diving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria gets lectures on safety by the twins of all people, decides food is important (sometimes), debates the ethics of parsel-speech, and jumps off the castle.  
> not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this one out! school, work, and other insanity were conspiring against me! I hope anyone who reads this likes it anyway. :)  
> (Oh, and I hope no-one gets offended by the bits of religion in here. I'm not trying to mock anyone's religion, but it seems a bit odd that it's never really brought up in the cannon Potter-verse. Aria's got kind of a splinter religion; bits and pieces of lots of different things I've heard here and there. Again, not my intent to mock or insult, please enjoy.)

Aria stood on the roof. Early morning sunlight brought a soft warm against the chilly air.

In other words, it was a perfect morning for outdoor hijinks, so her books where in her bag.

And her bag was sitting on the roof next to her. 

And the roof was on a protruding alcove.

And the alcove thinger was on the castle.

And the castle was on the ground.

And the green grass…

Was also on the ground, and was green.

Aria closed her eyes, breathing deeply, slowly of the cool morning air.

Her magic stirred, flowing and simmering,  _ alive _ in her.

She opened her eyes, looking up.

Then she jumped.

Magic enhanced her leap, sending her flying up much higher than was normally humanly possible. She flew up, over the ridgeline of one roof-bit, and landed neatly on a different section.

The roof was about as odd as the inside of the castle. Here or there were flat spaces, in other places there were so many points that she could put one foot over three at a time. Standing in one of the flat areas, she pulled two long knives out of her sleeves, still breathing in a measured, practiced pace. She bowed slightly to the rising sun- she couldn’t think of anything else to bow to, and her training made the bow a necessary part of the form.

And thus, she began.

She moved fluidly, her motions precise. Practiced. Steady. Some were so slow that she trembled slightly at the effort, some quick enough to make her clothing and hair snap through the air.

She cut, jabbed, and kicked at the air.

Some people spoke of such forms as fighting imaginary opponents. Aria didn’t see it that way.

Forms were practice, yes- but no-one with any sense of logic would move so slowly in a fight. No-one who knew how to fight would place their feet so far apart. But the extreme care put into each and every motion worked the memory of each strike into her muscles and bones. The speed-varying as it was- forced her to become stronger. Faster. Even more precise-when moving slowly, the imperfections in each motion became painfully clear. When she didn’t quite pivot her foot enough for a sidekick, she could see it so much more clearly than if she’d been going as fast as she might were she actually fighting.

And when she went fast… well, she was working on speed, and that was that.

Her breathing remained calm; deep and even. Every once in a while she would punctuate a particular strike with a ki-yahp, sending ki -internal energy- into the strike.

She went through each form she knew, putting the knives away in favour of unarmed practice, then bringing her book bag up to get her staff, then her sword. Some of her forms were incomplete- she hadn’t learned them all before the move. That bothered her. But she let it slide by, as if blown away in the breeze.

When she finished, the sun had risen quite a bit, and the air had warmed quite a bit- or perhaps it was just her perception after exertion.

She stood, bowing again, and put all her weapons away properly. She stretched,cooling down carefully (a few times she hadn’t stretched afterwards. She’d regretted it the next day- and sometimes the day after that, and the day after…)

Then she sat, cross-legged, on the roof, and worked on her mental structures a bit more.

As it turned out, accidentally challenging the most powerful wizard in britain to a psionic duel was not a good idea. Particularly if you were only eleven.

She sat for a while, still as a statue.

Except for her hair, which moved when the air did, and her clothing, which did the same thing.

_ ‘Anarchists.’ _ she wasn’t sure if she was thinking about her hair and clothing or the rest of her, which remained firmly grounded on the roof despite the wind.

Then she stood, cleaned herself with a quick spell,  tied her hair back again (the spell hadn’t figured out that she wanted that there), and jumped off the roof.

With her bag. She did not leave her bag on the roof.

Hogwarts was a very tall building, and each time she jumped off of it into a free-fall she appreciated just how tall it was- usually around the time he magic activated to keep her from dying from the fall.

She opened her eyes, checking on how close she was to the ground.

Not very.

She spun, enjoying the feeling of falling.

Then she was closer to the ground.

Falling worked that way.

She flipped to an upright position, then stopped herself with a motion that looked a bit like a low-spin-kick.

The shock of stopping jarred her. Again, her magic moved to keep it from causing damage.

From there, she jumped again, sideways this time so she hit the ground at an angle, rolling to her feet.

“Aria! Are you crazy?”

Aria turned, her hair flying out before settling around her like a black cape. “I thought that was previously established.” She said, laughing.

The Weasley twins looked very, very worried. And surprised. And… their friend, who had long black dreadlocks, looks a bit… shocked.

Aria laughed even harder.

“What were you thinking?” Fred asked.

At least, she decided he was Fred. for all she knew, he was George.

“I thought jumping off stuff randomly was we Gryffindors job.” George said.

Or was he Fred?

Aria designated him as George.

And continued laughing. “Sorry-Sorry. It’s just- the looks on your faces-”

George assumed a look of mock offense. “Well,  my apologies for worrying about you.”

“I really shouldn’t be laughing…”

“Seriously, though-”

One of the twins, asking her to take something more seriously?

She laughed even harder.

“-Are you okay?”

Aria looked up, her eyes sparkling with laughter. “I am wonderful. Thank you for asking!” then she laughed again

“Did you hit your head?” the dreadlock boy asked.

She shook her head and stopped laughing- but not too abruptly. “No, I didn’t.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. But I do think my brother might have put a laughing charm or something on my shirt.”

“So what in the world did you jump off the roof for?”

“What were you doing on the roof in the first place?”

She held up a hand. “Hold in a second: I must record this momentous event.” she pulled out paper and a scrap of parchment. “Today… the Weasley Twins… told someone else… (me)... to be… less… reckless…”

“Okay, so we’re not the picture of logic and rule-following like Percy is, but… Jumping off the roof?”

“You’ve seen me jump off the roof at home.”

“Ari, that’s two stories tall. Plus the attic. Hogwarts is… a whole lot taller than that. It’s like comparing a flea to an elephant.”

Aria nodded slowly. “Maybe a kangaroo. Elephants don’t jump.”

The three boys looked at her as if she’d missed the entire point.

“What?” She asked.

“It’s just… a bit…”

“Flat-out- crazy to go jumping off castles like that.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s impossible to fly unassisted. Isn’t it?  How did you do that… stopping thing?”

“Yes, you can’t fly unassisted, unless you turn into a bird or something first, but I wasn’t flying. It’s an air-step.”

“Right.”

“Clears it right up.”

Aria sighed. “It’s a Wuxio thing.”

“A what now?”

“Wuxio. Or Musuel-Maebob, depending.”

“On what?”

“I don’t know. But it’s very common in Asia.”

“I thought you were american.”

“I am. But some of that american is from Asia.”

“Clear as mud.”

Aria blew her hair out of her face- the wind had blown it in. It wasn’t very effective. “Okay. America has a lot of different kinds of people in it. Some from England, some from China or Korea… and Japan too, I guess, France, some who’ve just been there for as long as the stories tell. So, as a result of that mix, I’m part American Indian, part Korean, and part English.”

“You’re part English?”

“Yes? My grandmother came from England.” she shrugged. “One of them, anyway. Or maybe she was one of my aunts…?”

“Huh.”

“Anyway, so… yeah. What were we talking about before genealogy?”

“Your insanity.”

“Oh, that. Right. By the way, who’s your friend?”

“What? Oh. this is Lee Jordan.”

“Hello.”

“Hi. Aria, right?”

“Yep. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Niiiice…” Fred said.

“Not to be confused with Nice.”

“What?”

“It’s a city in France. I think. It’s spelled the same way as nice.”

“Oh, nice.”

They were quiet for a little bit.

“Is it still breakfast time?”

“I think so.”

“Okay. See you later, right?”

“Yep. Just don’t give anyone a heart attack- okay?”

Aria just laughed and went inside.

Once at the ravenclaw table, she grabbed an apple and sat down.

She pulled out one of her books and started to skin through it while eating.

_ ‘...However, as Parseltongue is a complex and nuanced language, it is recommended that any seeking to learn it find a natural speaker to assist them. While this book may be helpful, it is doubted that spoken parseltounge can be properly learned from any book. _

_ Well known families with the blood-trait of parselspeech include…’ _

What followed was a list of countries and family names. She skipped to the section on britain.

Slytherin- no surprise there.

Merlin had been a parselmouth, the book noted, but he hadn’t had a family.

Perevel, a line which had died out and merged with the Potter line…

And…

That was it.

Aria frowned, looking at the other lists. The ones in Europe were much shorter than ones elsewhere.

_ I wonder why. _

She finished the apple and quietly left. She pulled a jar of peanut butter from her book bag and started eating a spoonfull, then put the jar away and continued walking down the hall, reading.

“Typical Ravenclaw.”

Aria glanced up. “Hello, Ron.”

“What are you reading, anyway?”

“A general introduction to parseltongue, for traitless beginners.”

“Why are you studying parseltongue?”

“What’s parseltongue?” the boy standing behind Ron asked. He was that Harry-Potter boy from the wand shop.

“Because it’s a fascinating language. It’s even got its own magic like other ancient languages.”

Rin made a curious gesture with his hand, like he was warding away evil or something.

Which made no sense.

Aria turned to the Harry-Potter-Boy-from-the-wand-shop. “Parceltongue is the language of snakes. It’s been around for a really long time. Some people know it as a blood-trait, and some people like me just learn it.”

“Blood-Trait?”

“But snakes are evil!” Ron blurted.

“Yep. A sadly recessive one, I’m afraid. What makes snakes evil?”

Ron looked at her as if she was completely insane. “They- the just are! You-know-who was one-”

“No, actually, I don’t know who- no-one will tell me who exactly it is.” Aria put in dryly.  _ Although I was under the impression that he was a person, not a snake. _

“Slytherin was one, and everyone knows he was evil-”

“We do?” Aria asked, surprised. “Besides, just because a few people did bad things with it doesn't make it bad. Following that logic, wands are bad because some people use them to murder people.”

“Parseltongue is dark!”

“Prove it. Oh, Following the logic of ‘all parselmouths are evil’, shouldn’t Merlin be evil? What about Jessica Perevel-Potter?”

“What?” Harry asked, interested.

“Oh- the Pereval line held parselspeech as a blood-trait. That line joined the Potter line a while back, and it hasn’t been seen since.”

“Good riddance.”

“I think maybe it just needs to be woken up.” Aria said thoughtfully, not hearing Ron. “I just don’t know how. Or how to figure out if someone’s got a dormant blood-trait.”

Harry looked pale, but neither of the other two children noticed much.

Well, Aria almost did. But in her opinion, nearly everyone in britain was far too pale anyway, and at that point what did a few shades matter?

She continued down the hallway, trying to recite the alphabet. She was, she knew, butchering it terribly, but she let it slide.  _ I’ll get better. I always do. _

 

Except, she didn’t.

She was hanging up-side-down off a shelf in the library, feeling a growing frustration.

Or maybe it was just the blood rushing to her head.

She hissed in frustration and threw the book across the room. She hadn’t done  _ that  _ in a while, but she felt justified. besides, no-one was around to see her lose control.

“Um. Good morning?”

Aria fell off the shelf and landed on the floor with a thud. She got to her feet. “Good morning. I didn’t see you there.”  _ or hear you there. Or sense your presence. Or… okay, he  _ has _ taken a shower recently, no need to be insulting, even if it’s just in my head. _ “Um… what are you doing here at this hour?”

“I was actually looking for you.” Harry Potter asked.

Warnings gleaned from different books were going off in her head. But she doubted Harry was old enough for her to have to worry.

“So you came to the library at five in the morning?”

“Six.”

Aria glanced at her watch. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I- didn’t want to ask with Ron around. He’s…”

“A good friend but stubborn and loudmouthed?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Aria waited.

“Well- anyway. Parseltongue- it’s just talking to snakes?”

“Parseltongue is the language of snakes, yes.”

“Okay. And… Ron thinks it’s bad, but you don’t?”

Aria shook her head, then paused, tipping her head. “Some people think snakes are bad.” she said slowly. “But some people fear foxes or bats irationaly. Really, you only need to fear a bat if it’s a vampyre and a fox if it’s a shiftling. Snakes seem to have a negative connotation to them- representing the Devil and so on- but I grew up with different tales and titles. For example, the Feathered Serpent.”

“What?”

“Snake, being close to the ground, would know very well if there’s a drought, would they not?” she didn’t wait for an answer. “So it is sometimes said that they would tell the Creator when rain was needed, and then in his wisdom the Creator would send rain if he chose. Obviously, the Creator already knows when rain is and isn’t needed, but it’s a nice thought.”

Harry looked a bit confused.

“I promise I have a point. Snakes, then, are governors of the ground, yes? And birds, with their flight, are seen as lords of the sky. Thus the title ‘Feathered Serpent’ refers to one who rules both- the Creator. So while Ron may think of snakes and think of Satan, I think of snakes and think of God.” she frowned slightly. “Sounds a bit weird said out loud like that, but there are other stories I could turn to...”

Harry looked utterly bamboozled.

She sighed. “The point is, Parselspeech isn’t good or bad, any more than english or french is good or bad. Some people think it’s bad, some people think it’s good, but there’s no proof of either way. Actually, most ‘evidence’ just says that it’s neutral as latin. And three times as confusing. Why the interest?”

“I… Think I might have talked to a snake. A couple months ago- at the zoo.”

“Really?”

“Yeah- I didn’t really know what it was until Hagrid told me I was a wizard, and then I thought it was just magic and anyone could do it. But then you and Ron…”

“Kinda yelled in your face that it wasn’t?”

“Yeah…”

“Sorry.” she glanced down at her book. “D’you think you could teach me parseltongue?”

“Um… I don’t know. I don’t really know how to do it- I honestly thought I was speaking english. Back with the boa constrictor…”

“Oh. But could you try?”

“I… guess? But I still don’t know…”

“How did it start last time?”

“I don’t know. The snake started it.”

Aria picked up her book, opened it to one of the first pages and tried to say ‘How does the sun find you?’

Harry’s face contorted into a look of disbelief and utter confusion.

“What?”

“That was parseltongue?”

“I think so.”

“Why  would you say…”

“What? I was basically trying to say ‘good morning’...”

“You said… something like ‘I am common today’.”

“ _ What _ ?”

“It didn’t make sense to me either.”

Aria looked back at the book. “Does any of this make sense to you?” she pushed the book toward him.

He looked at it. “Yeah, why?”

She groaned. “It’s written in parcel-script. I’ve been trying to figure that squiggly mess out for  _ weeks. _ ”

“Weeks?”

“Yeah. It’s never taken me that long to learn a new alphabet!”  _ unless you count that time I went nuts and tried to learn Chinese. But that language is so messy it doesn’t even  _ have _ an alphabet! Sure, it’s ancient and filled with power, but… _ Harry had started talking again.

“Maybe you should be more patient?” he offered. “I hear learning new languages isn’t easy.”

“Diffal danc a dyr i garreg, Ha-na el ci calvero.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “A bunch of gibberish. Well, it all means something, but it doesn't mean anything.”

“That… makes no sense.”

“Sue me. Basically, I said…” she frowned, remembering her exact phrasing. “Something like ‘steady tapping breaks the stone, one, the yes horse.’”

“Why would you say that?”

“Why not?” she liked talking to people more in the morning. They tended to be less observant and more forgiving of social slip-ups she might make.

“Uh…”

“So what does this page say?”

“Well, it explains that learning parseltongue is difficult…”

“That’s the english part.”

“And then it repeats itself?”

“Really?” Aria leaned over, looking at the book upside-down.

“Yeah… but it’s got a couple snarky comments about people trying to learn it buried in the second time.”

“Could you read it aloud?”

“Um…” he was blinking nervously and Aria wondered absently if he had tourettes-syndrome.

“You don’t have to.” she said quickly.

“No- it’s just- should I try reading it in english or parseltongue?”

“Don’t try either way. ‘Don’t think, just do’.”

“Okay…” he looked down at the book and took a deep breath. Then he started to read.

After about thirty seconds of hissing that Aria couldn’t understand- which frustrated her to no end- he glanced up and said something.

“I have no idea what you just said.” Aria said.

He looked surprised and hissed something else.

“Still parseltongue.”

“Potter’s a parselmouth?”

Aria turned. “Hello.” she decided to avoid saying Draco Malfoy’s name altogether, thereby bypassing the ‘which name to use’ conundrum.

Hopefully.

“Malfoy. What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question, Potter.”

Aria quietly summoned her book back to her. The air was quickly dropping in temperature.

_ There’s a thing I could say here, right? Something that might make them stop being so tense…? Um… something… words… language… which one am I thinking in right now? _

“Well, I asked first.”

_ Hardly a winning point, but true. _

“So you’re a parselmouth…”

“What if I am?”

“Oh, it’s just interesting is all. And… does Weasley know about this?”

“Maybe he does. What’s it to you?”

“Well, if he decides he wants nothing to do with you when you tell him- and I’m sure you  _ will _ tell him, won’t you?- my offer is still on the table.”

_ This smells like politics. Or maybe that’s just a cologne or something he’s using. Either way, it’s giving me a headache. _

Aria started searching out her copy of ‘Warbreaker’ to hide in. there was ice growing on the floor, quietly, slowly but surely.

“What’s your problem?” Harry Potter demanded.

“Who says I have a problem?” Draco Malfoy asked. “However, if you choose to consort with blood-traitors and the like… what’s next but mudbloods?”

Harry looked confused.

“He’s referring to blood-purity.” Aria put in. “the concept that people whose lines are filled with magicals are somehow superior to those who don’t. Thus terms like half-blood, which is fairly self-explanatory, muggle-born, which is also self-explanatory, and mud-blood, which means the same thing as muggle-born but is very rude, crude, and insulting.”

“Crude?” Malfoy asked, it face flushing a little.

Aria looked up. “Well, I don’t know that one for certain but most insults tend to be crude, especially ones containing only one word. And I’m pretty sure all insults made solely regarding one’s heritage are crude, so…”

“So much for middle-ground.”

“Peaceful middle-ground. I really don’t care much one way or the other so long as people follow the two rules.”

“You’ve met Malfoy?”

Aria nodded, having found her book, and flipped to her spot.

The two boys were arguing some more, but Aria hid in her book. Vivienna was learning about Breath…

Fascinating stuff, really.

“You mean to tell me no-one’s ever told you about the magical political system?”

“Should they have?”

“Of course! You’re Heir to the ancient and most noble house of Potter!”

“Which means…”

_ Well, it sounds like they’re not arguing anymore. How come Breath sounds so similar to a lot of that necromantic stuff? Oh look, here’s Hoid again. What’s up with him? He’s been in… Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker… is there a reason for him being there or does Sanderson just do it for fun? _

After a little while, the boys remembered they weren’t friends and started arguing again.

Aria stood and left the library. She had more important things to worry about than two eleven-year-old boys yelling at each-other.

Like breakfast.

Breakfast was important, right?


	11. Colors, Crickets, and... Cats?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria attempts awakening a cricket (That might be a grasshopper) using the color from a neon Handkerchief a friend gave her.  
> A little insight into family magics, and a Racoo- Cat. Cat? Cat.  
> And I definitely read too much Brandon Sanderson for my own good. SUE ME (Or don't, 'cause I'm broke :).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... I re-wrote this. the first one sucked. if anyone read that. sorry. I hope this one's better. I'm working on the next one but school's being crazy.

Aria looked over her Arithmantic work and nodded to herself. It all checked out, so far as she could tell- though there was a wiggle of worry in the back of her head, going through every mathematical and arithmantical mistake she’d ever made- choosing to hover on one that had ended in a particularly colorful explosion. They’d been in the non-magical world at the time and had passed it off as fireworks.

She pushed it away and went to go find something to test it on- if she _was_ wrong, after all, what was the worst that could happen?

While the negative little voice in the back of her head went over all the different ways a modified necromantic spell could go wrong (and reminded her of all the essays she’d yet to get more than a few lines done that were almost due), She caught a cricket and killed it.

The killing part was mostly an accident- she froze the poor thing in over-excitement. She pulled a brilliantly colored scarf from her pocket- she still wasn’t sure if it was meant to be green or yellow- and set it on the grass in front of her. She set the frozen cricket on top of it and began drawing runes on the scarf with a piece of chalk. That done, she began chanting quietly, suggesting a course to her magic.

The color drained out of the handkerchief. The cricket went from brown to gray. She sealed the enchantment with the phrase ‘Almond Grass’- complete nonsense, which was her favorite kind of magical code-phrase.

 _‘For all his other problems, Lightsong_ did _get Allmother to speak with him…’_ She thought absently, watching the glowing from the runes fade.

“Almond grass.” She said softly. “Run around me three times. Almond grass.”

The gray cricket did as commanded. Aria’s eyes widened.

“It worked.” she said softly. “It worked!” She called a little louder, jumping to her feet. A few snowflakes crystallized in the air around her, glittering in the sunlight. _‘Like gloryspren. Dang. maybe I should read something by someone else for a while- but still. I did it!’_

“Do you mind if I ask what worked, Carver?”

Aria spun around. _‘Usually I’m more aware than that…’_ the motion made her dizzy. The ritual must have taken more energy than she’d thought.

“Hello.” She said, adjusting her feet to keep herself up. “I was… experimenting with a spell.”

The cricket came to a stop on the handkerchief.

“Did you… animate an insect?” Malfoy asked.

“Something like that, yes.” She picked up the handkerchief by the corners, keeping the cricket inside.

“Whatever for?” his lip curled in distaste.

“To see if I could.”

“But still-why an insect?”

“Well, I wasn’t about to catch a fish.” She said- though she _had_ considered it.

She could see the confusion on his face.

“And to confuse anyone who might see it.” She added, though it was a blatant lie.

“Hey, Malfoy.” a voice called.

“You’re not bothering Ari, are you?” a nearly identical voice asked.

“Weasleys.” Malfoy muttered.

“He’s not.” Aria said.

“What’s that?” twin one asked, gesturing towards Aria’s bundle.

Aria smiled. “A handkerchief. And an awakened.”

“A what now?”

“A handkerchief.”

“No- the other one.”

“It’s a bug.” Draco said.

“A cricket.” Aria added. “Or… maybe it’s actually a grasshopper. I’m not very good at zoology.”

“Can we see?”

Aria hesitated. They might take it the wrong way. It was, after all, derived from necromancy, though the sacrifice in the ritual had been changed from lifeblood to color. She pulled out the cricket that might be a grasshopper and held it out.

“Is… that it?” twin two asked.

Aria smiled. “It’s almond grass.”

“What?”

“Hop onto the twin that just spoke, Almond grass.”

The twin in question lept back as the insect lunged for him.

Aria started laughing. The other twin started laughing with her. Malfoy seemed confused.

“Very funny, Ari.” the twin said, handing her back the Awakened.

“It’s named Almond-grass?” the other one asked.

Aria shrugged. “I suppose.”

“Carver… Where did you find that particular spell?”

“I made it. Well, adapted it. See, in the original the cost was ridiculous, but then I realised that it had been designed with sentient beings in mind, so with a little tweaking I came up with a variant that works fine for grasshopper-crickets.”

“Necromancy.” Malfoy said, his voice tinged with curiosity. “You’ve been dabbling in necromancy.”

“What?” the twins said in unison.

“No. didn’t you hear? Necromancy specifically involves raising the dead, and-or any ritual, spell, et-cetera that required life-blood as a cost. I technically didn’t raise the cricket from the dead, and there was no life-blood involved. Unless you count when I accidentally killed the poor thing.”

“No wonder you’re not in Slytherin.” Draco said. “No subtly at all.”

Aria shrugged.

“That sounds like splitting hairs, Aria…”

“Are you sure you’re not meddling with dark magic?”

Aria looked up from the cricket to the twins. “All magic is dark, silly. Some is just lighter than others.” She tucked the handkerchief (which was once more holding the cricket) into her blet and started for the owlery. Maybe she could find an owl willing to send a letter for her.

Her stomach tightened. What if one of the three boys turned her in? She didn’t know if what she’d done was specifically illegal or not… _‘the twins are pranksters- they break rules all the time… but they seemed to have objection to this… and I don’t know about Draco… Malfoy… Malfoy? Draco? Confound it, what am I supposed to call him?’_ the nervousness spread, tingling through her- and she finally realised it wasn’t hers.

She looked down at her right forearm. Runes- written in a combination of the Old-Tongue’s characters and Chinese- were glowing faintly. She didn’t know all the runes- She’d found Chinese a mess too thick for her to pick out- but from what she _did_ know, it seemed that her mother was sending the signal.

 _‘What’s happened?’_ Aria wondered.

_Darkness. The first time Aria had melded with wood, feeling it’s grains slip over her- become part of her. Blood on the floor. On her._

She shook the memory away and turned back to the boys. “Are there any fire-places at Hogwarts connected to the floo network?” She asked.

“What’s wrong?” on of the twins asked.

Aria tried to calm her expression but didn’t think she did very well.

“I don’t know.” SHe said, an edge of terror seeping through her voice.

 _‘Come on, Aria! Get a grip!’_ she told herself.

“Then why do you look so worried?”

“Family magics.” She said, waving it away. “Is there a floo here? If not, what’s the fastest way to communicate with my family?”

“Whatever’s gotten you so worried comes to mind.” one of the twins said.

“The fireplaces in the teachers sitting rooms are connected, to they sometimes temporarily shut it off.” Malfoy said. “Though they typically don’t let students use them.”

“Then how do you know?” the twins asked.

Draco lifted his head haughtily.

 _‘Flitwick might let me use his… it’s clearly an emergency…’_ Aria thought- and then she started to run. She leapt across the lake and started up the wall before ducking in a window, trying to figure out where her head-of-house might be.

And then she saw the cat. She hesitated. The cat looked familiar. She narrowed her eyes. It looked like… _‘Grandmother Lizzy’s Animagus form- or at least how it looked a few years back.’_

“Homenum Revelio.” She muttered. The cat glowed like a beacon. “Finite incantatem.”

The illusion fell. The ‘cat’ was a racoon- and the racoon was even more familiar than the cat.

“Jacob! You idiot! What are you doing here?” She hissed.

The racoon shifted. Her older brother shrugged.

“Just wanted to see what it’s like- how you’re doing…”

“Jay, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“And I’ve been _trying_ to find a way back home.”

“In Racoon form?”

“Well I figured that would get me in less trouble than as me. Especially if I looked like a cat!”

“Do you have any idea how many cats there are here?”

“Exactly!”

They paused.

“What do you think people with Cat allergies do?” Aria asked.

Jacob shrugged. “Home-school?”

“Speaking of home… how are we getting you back there?” Aria asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.”

“That’s what’s got mom so worked up!” Aria said, smaking the side of her face (Gently).

“She sent me a messenger, saying it was probably time to come home now, but…”

“Seriously?”

“I might’ve written her a letter but I couldn't find any spare paper.”

“You are insane. _Insane_.”

“You think everyone’s insane.”

“And I’m not wrong. But…”

“Well, sorry for worrying about you. You _did_ run into a forest of acromantulas, if I heard correctly.”

“My white knight.” Aria said, her voice groaning with sarcasm. “Augh…” she pressed her hands against her face, running them back into her hair. “ _What_ were you thinking…” she mumbled.

“I already explained that, didn’t I?”

Aria glared at him. He refused to wilt and Aria took a brief moment to bemoan the fact that her siblings all seemed imune.

“So, if you’re not too busy glaring daggers at me, could you maybe clean off the floor?” Jacob asked. “You’ve coated it in ice again and I’m afraid I left my skates home.”

“You do it, genius. It was all your idea anyway.” She said,  flicking a few snowflakes at him.

“Was not. It was… partially mine.”

“Aria?” Hermione called, slipping out of a classroom and falling flat, “What are you all worked up about no….w… is that your brother?”

“Who’s your friend?” Jacob asked.

“Jacob, this is miss Hermione Granger. Hermione, this is Jacob, my annoying older brother.”

“So… did you actually make friends with her?” Jacob murmured in spanish.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Not sure. I think it started when I made her a map?”

“Friendship on utility, then?”

“You’ve been reading ‘Ethics’ again, haven’t you?”

“If you don’t mind, what are you two saying? It’s rude to speak foreign languages when others are present, you know.” Hermione said.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Hermione rolled her eyes. “Does your brother go to Hogwarts too? I thought you said all your siblings were at home.”

“I thought they _were_.” Aria said, glaring again.

“Keep holding that face and it might get stuck there.” Jacob said, mimicking their grandmother’s soft, almost frail tone and faint english accent.

Aria landed a half-hearted punch on his shoulder.

“In all seriousness, though, how am I getting back home?”

Hermione’s eyes widened.

“I don’t know… I could write a letter… mom and dad could-”

“I’ll tell professor McGonagall.” Hermione said. “She should be able to do something, and-”

“Are you always so quick to run to authority figures?” Jacob asked.

Hermione glared at him. She wasn’t as good at it as Aria- it had been said that only a Korean woman could glar like that- but She had a decent glare nonetheless.

“And _what_ , pray tell, is the problem with that?” She snapped.

“Well, if you run to tell Mr. or Mrs. in-charge every time something goes wrong, what will you do when they're gone- or when they’re wrong?”

Hermione spluttered for a second or two. “I doubt that the deputy headmistress of the best magical school in all of Britain would-”

“You are aware that Hogwarts is the _only_ magical school in Britain?” Jacob put in. “So technically, it’s also the worst. And I don’t see how your professor McGonagall's rank should automatically mean she’s a good person.”

Aria shuffled back a half-pace, bringing her feet together.

“Well, according to ‘Hogwarts, a history’, all staff members are put through a rigorous background check before being allowed to be teachers- the only exception has been the DADA professor, since it’s been so hard to find one since the curse- and only after at least five years of employment are they allowed to be a head-of house- and twice that to become a-”

“And you know for a fact that the people running the background checks are in the clear? How do-”

“Well, I have to trust _somebody_!” Hermione shouted, ignoring the jagged icicles growing on the walls.

“But you shouldn’t trust just _anybody_. For example, the author of your ‘Hogwarts, a history’- it doesn't mention how the political factions and houses have levied for, and gradually gained, more and more power in the school board, does it? And it doesn't mention the stupidity of the house, or anything about the house e-”

“Are you so critical of everything _you_ read?”

“Yes.”

“And how do you judge all that? Who taught you to do it?”

“My Family.”

“And how do you know you can trust them? How do you-”

“Would you both stop it!” Aria shouted.

It wasn’t a terribly loud shout, but as the other two knew Aria, it was like a thunderclap.

“You have differing view on the world. Debate it in letter if you like- but can we _please_ get Jacob home first?” She asked.

“Right…” Jacob said, looking around. “Huh. y’know, you’d think I'd Have noticed a drop in temperature this severe.”

Hermione frowned. “We don’t learn the vanishing spell for another few years…”

“Well that’s just plain ridiculous.” Jacob said, pulling his wand out. A few practiced flicks later, the ice was gone, except for a small shard he transfigured into a poppy and handed to Hermione.

“Memory of conflict?” Aria asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yep. In Flanders field…

“The poppies grow, between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place and in the sky the larks still bravely sing ‘let’s stop getting side-tracked, shall we’?”

“Sure. got any paper?”

Aria handed him a sheet of parchment, inkpot, and brush.

“I’ll go find McGonagall.” Hermione said, seeming to have forgotten that was what had caused the conflict in the first place.

*

At the Carver residence, an increasingly frantic mother was charming paper cranes to find her son, a few locks of hair from his last haircut stuck to each one.

A rough crane- folded of parchment, not paper- flapped noisily as it limped in through the window.

She opened it and started to read the message there. The characters had been painted in two different, familiar hand-writings. As her panic started to fade, her anger started to grow. ‘ _What in the world was Jacob_ thinking _?’_

Aria seemed to shared her feelings-

    ‘Jay’s being an idiot about the whole thing- I don’t know what he was thinking, but-’

    ‘I was just trying to look out for my baby sister! Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t let you know what was happening-’ Jacob’s handwriting was, in turn, interrupted.

    ‘I am _not_ a baby!’

Mrs. Carver shook her head. She loved her children, but sometimes…

*

After sending her brother through the floo, Aria formed and icy bust of her brother and shattered it. She left the shards to melt on the floor, and then curled up at a desk with her remaining fifteen assignments and a cup of tea- a mix of several different herbs- and started to work. Most of her assignments were due the next day, and all of them were partially done.

She hated deadlines.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did have that poem memorized at one point :)  
> Hope you guys like it (But if not... eh, one less story bouncing around my head.)  
> I also posted a (Hopefully comedic) Ranger's Apprentice one-shot today if anyone's interested.


	12. Language and Doors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria might know too many languages for her own good (and leaving that essay till the last minute was an awful idea there, Aria, just plain awful), and more doors with silly locks.

Aria handed in her essay with the other students. She tried to ignore the dirty looks and mutterings, but at least the ice wasn’t slippery this time.

In her last class she’d been partially responsible for a broken wrist and a sprained ankle. The ice was her fault, but if they didn’t know how to fall that was their own fault.

“C-c-arver?”

Aria looked up at Professor Quirrel.

“I th-th-ink this ess-s-ay has been written p-p-partially in Greek-k-k. And-d-d this down here-ere looks like-k gibberish.”

Aria looked at the part indicated. It wasn’t gibberish, it was Latin. With some French. And Spanish. And… well, a different dialect of Spanish. And some Welsh. And the Greek was only partially Greek-part of it was Korean. She frowned at it. In one part it looked like she’d been using a combination of Han-Gul and whatever the Greek alphabet was, but the words that came from the sounds were…

Partaily Draconic? A little Italian? Some German...

“And-d down-n-n here it looks like you fell-l-l aslee-ee-p.”

Those near enough to hear giggled.

Aria looked again. “That’s East-western Mermish.” She corrected under her breath.

“I s-see. Perhaps y-you could-d rewrite this-s for me-in English-sh, this time-m?”

She bit her lip and took the parchment back. She went back to her seat and ignored what her classmates said- literally blocking them out in favor of other sounds, like the chairs scraping on the floor and the door creaking as a few late students stumbled in.

The class was on things she knew. It was also on the same thing as it had been the time before, so far as she could remember, so she took the time to rewrite her essay. It was tricky- some words simply didn’t exist in English.

Further down than Quirrel had bothered to peruse, She found a section she’d written in Klingon, something even she couldn’t read, and a few runes she’d styled into a snake.

She didn’t remember doing that, but she _had_ been working past one in the morning… still, what she _could_ read made sense, so she’d been on to something with her tea blend. Now she just needed a way to eliminate the need for a calming tincture-drought before she could sleep.

 

“What’s the matter, Carver- Can’t stand English?” someone muttered on the way out.

She ignored them. History was next, which she’d found was a decent place to read her mail. Professor Binns hadn’t been replaced yet, and his drone was more annoying than the Twins had said. Clearly they needed a bigger vocabulary.

    She looked through her mail- Volume 4 of RWBY and a note to herself about another assignment due the next day. She didn’t remember writing the note.

    The ghost was still droning.

    She tapped her fingers on the desk impatiently. It was made out of ash, and the grain had been worn smooth- whether by magic, sanding, of just years of use, she couldn’t be sure. She looked at it. It was stained darker than it’s natural color- mostly by generations of students running their fingers over it, if she had her guess. She dug a fingernail into it. Ash was a hardwood, and her nail didn’t get very deep. She shrugged mental and took out her pencil and a ruler- a marked straightedge was always handy- and started sketching a geometrical design onto the desk, making sure to leave plenty of space in the middle for parchment and other writing supplies.

    The class ended before she could begin carving, but the idea burned brightly in her mind- letting her smile on her way out, rather than rub sleep out of her eyes.

*

    “Um… George? Fred?”

    “Afternoon, Aria.” The twin who spoke pulled his hand back from the painting nervously, as if She’d caught them out on something.

    “Well... I was just going to apologise for…” _‘They’d probably laughed if I said ‘behaved dishonourably, wouldn’t they?’_

    “Running off all panicky earlier?

    “Um… yeah.” _‘Although…’_ She let her lips twitch into a bit of an impish smile.

    “Eh. No problem.”

    “But like I said, I was _going_ to just apologise…”

    “But…?” the twins asked in unison.

    “But you're acting guilty as a man just cut himself from the noose. What are you doing?”

    “Why, Pranking, of course, m’dear Miss Carver.” one twin said. The other stated their other thought:

    “Guiltier than a man just cut himself from the noose? What kind of an expression is that?”

    Aria winced. “The kind that falls out of your mouth before you realise which words are in it. But seriously, what _are_ you up to?”

    They sighed, not quite in synch- one was of by around half a second.

    “We’re having a party in the Gryffindor common room.”

    “Another one? What’s this one for?”

    “We’ve finally got a seeker!”

    Aria blinked wordlessly. _‘A… what now?’_

    “Gryffindor hasn’t had one since Charlie graduated-”

    “Which honestly has only been a week or two, not counting summer-”

    “But we’d’ve been _slaughtered_ out there without a seeker, regardless of how good the rest of us are.”

    _‘Um… is this a sports thing? I don’t understand…’_

    “But now Harry’s gone and somehow managed to wrangle the spot. He’s _good_ , too, if Wood’s excitement's anything to go by.”

    _‘So… sports?’_

    One of the twins caught on to her confusion. “You… do know what a seeker is, right?”

    “Not really. I think I’ve heard Jacob talk about them off and on- mostly broom characteristics for them- but…”

    “The seeker is basically in charge of who wins the game. The game doesn't end until a seeker catches the snitch and it’s worth a heck’v a lotta points. You _can_ win the game without you seeker catching the snitch, but it's really difficult.”

    “The snitch… that’s…”

    “The little one with wings that darts around trying not to get caught.”

    “I see. So… that’s why a seeker’s broom needs to be superfast with high maneuverability?”

    “Yep. Betcha can’t name characteristics for other positions?”

    “Um… the one that blocks the goals-”

    “Keeper-”

    “Needs a sturdy broom with at _least_ decent maneuverability, The ones whacking the heavy balls-”

    “Us-”

    “Beaters-”

    “Need stable brooms to keep from spinning off with each hit and the ones throwing the balls-”

    “Chasers-”

    “I thought that was something people drank after strong alcohol.” Aria asked, confused.

    The twins eyes widened.

    _‘Oops…’_ “They need fast, maneuverable and stable brooms, so they general meet in the middle of all zones, right? And then the ones with sword need something easy to stay on while-”

    “Who holds a sword while playing quidditch?”

    “I was talking about mounted fencing.”

    “Oh.”

    “How come you know all that stuff but didn’t remember what a seeker was?”

    “Jacob.”

    “Ah.”

    “So is that painting the door to the kitchens?” Aria asked, pointing. The picture in question depicted a fruit bowl.

    “Could be.”

    “Could be not.”

    “Couldn’t rightly say.”

    “So it is.”

    “Ravenclaw.”

    “That’s not me being a Ravenclaw, it’s having common sense.”

    “Oh…”

    “Sense…”

    “Remember what that stuff is, Fred?”

    “Mmm… Can’t say as I do… but Mum keeps yelling at us about it.”

    “Can common sense tell you how to open the door?” One asked.

    Aria raised an eyebrow. “It’s Hogwarts. Maybe you need to sing the second verse of ‘five and twenty blackbirds’ or turn seven cartwheels, knock in the right pattern or try to eat one of the fruits.”

    “So this mystery stumps you?” there was a note of challenge in the boy’s voice.

    “Are you asking me to solve it?”

    There was no verbal answer. Aria shrugged and stepped up to the painting, taking out her wand.

    “What are you doing?”

    “Examining the spells on it.” She held up her wand and started casting various spells silently, a tingling of frost radiating around her with excitement as the twins grew nervous.

    “How much silent music do you know?”

    Aria held up a finger to silence them, then frowned. The spell she cast was showing flickering readings… She pulled her true-sight Amulet out and looked through it. The readings steadied, though they held a sense of disapproval.

    _‘How can a building’s enchantment read-outs feel disapproving?’_ She wondered. _‘Eh. It’s Hogwarts. It’s been steeped in enough magic for a long enough time it may have attained some level of sentience. Maybe Hogwarts doesn't like being studied.’ whatever… wait, did a seven there mean a rotating scratching motion or a tickling motion?_ ’ She frowned at the equations and runes that glowed in front of her, then dismissed them. She reached out and brushed the pear (hoping she had the grid aligned properly) with her fingertips. It wriggled, and she tickled it. It giggled, then turned into a door-handle.

    “Dang it, Ari. Why do you always figure stuff out like that?”

    “With an excessive use of magic? Because I’ve got no idea how to function without it. Well, I have a lot of _idea_ , but no practical application... practice.” She had a vague idea that that line had come out stupidly, but wasn't sure how.

“Well, that aside…” One twin said, gripping the handle.

“...Welcome to the Hogwarts Kitchens.”


	13. Tradition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aria meets the kitchen elves, takes a placement test (confirming that Professor Quirrel is bizarre) and discusses traditions with two polar opposites that aren't.

Aria’s eyes widened. The kitchens were huge.

_ ‘And I thought the kitchen area for that one new years celebration was large… that could fit in here and half again, at least… _ ’

The room was filled with counters, stoves, ovens, and the like, but they were all… shorter. And manned by… Aria tipped her head slightly, frowning a bit as she searched for what the  _ heck _ those beings were.

“Never seen a house-elf, Ari?”

_ ‘Oh, right. Those.’ _

“Those are the ones with the symbiotic relationship where they siphon the excess magic off a Magi’s aura via service, typically through contract?”

“Okay, most of that sounded English…”

“But we’ve got  _ no _ idea what you just said.”

The twins went into the Kitchens, obviously accustomed to being there, and Aria followed a little hesitantly.

The last time she’d been let in a kitchen that was working full time like this…

Hadn’t gone well.

She’d spend the rest of the day supervising her younger cousins in their ice-skating, snowball fights, and other activities where her habit of freezing things wouldn't cause problems.

“Misters Wheasys!” an elf cried, jumping up. “You is wanting food? And who is being your friend from Ravinsys-Housey?”

The twins burst out laughing at  _ that _ interpretation of the name and Aria joined them, sending little swirls of snow into the air.

“This is Aria Carver.”

“And she’s too smart for her own good.” one twin said good naturedly.

“No such thing.” Aria responded with a mock pout. “There’s still boatloads left to learn. And the boat’s the size of the universe, turns out.”

“Is Miss Carver liking Hogywartys?” One elf asked.

“Um… I think so? It’s… different.” Aria glanced at the twins and saw that they were getting swarmed by the elves, who were giving them all sorts of things for their party. “Do you like Hogwarts?”

“Oh, yes. We is loving to be working here!”

“Um… do you mind if I ask a question that might be… rude?”

“Oh, no Miss Carver. Only please be keeping your ice out of the soup.”

Aria looked up, blushed, and vanished her ice away. “Um… I suppose you do all the cooking…”

“Yes.”

“And cleaning…”

“Yes.”

“Who does the laundry?”

“Oh, Nobodies are being doing it.”

“Then how does it get done?” Aria asked, sure that there was an explanation that simply didn’t fit in with her ‘When nobody does something, it doesn't get done’ mindset.

“When yous or another student is being putting dirty laundry in the hamper, it is being vanished when you is looking, yes?”

“Yes…”

“It is being moved away to be cleaned by magicks, and then is being put with your other clothes all by the magicks of the laundry-room.” the elf lowered her voice. “We is never ever going in there for being safety.”

Aria nodded. “That makes sense. What’s your name, by the way?”

“I is being called Reesy.”

Aria was then introduced to every elv in the kitchen. She apologised several times that she probably wouldn’t remember them all- her memory was decidedly picky- but they didn’t seem to mind.

When she left her head was spinning a bit…

No, she was just standing on the wall again. She jumped to the floor, wondering when the twins had left, and then decided it didn’t matter.

What  _ did _ matter was the decided lack of soy sauce in the kitchens. And sesame oil- when she’d asked the poor elves seemed to have never even heard of the stuff.

_ ‘Oooh… what would happen if I convinced them to make kimchi?’ _ She smiled a trifle deviously.

“Oh -hello.”

Aria wondered if being around people so much was corrupting her senses.

“Hello, Hermione.”

“How have you been?”

“Alright, I guess.” There was a thing to say here…  _ ‘Right?’ _ “How have you been?” She finally parroted back after the silence stretched on for far too long.

(five seconds. It had lasted five seconds.)

“Oh, fantastic! I’m learning so many fascinating things. Did you know all the paintings talk? Not just most of them- every single one I’ve met!”

“Well, the fruit doesn’t… but…”

“Well, fruit doesn’t talk, so that makes sense. But- all the people do. Only- all the people in my classes don’t seem to have even  _ looked _ at their books beforehand. One boy nearly caused an explosion in our potions class, can you imagine?”

“It’s not that difficult…”

Hermione continued like she hadn’t heard Aria.

“And then professor snape got mad at everyone  _ around _ the boy who made the mess- like we should have stopped him. Which, maybe we should have but we were all so busy trying to make our own potions I don’t think anyone really noticed. Oh, I got a letter from your brother by the way- I found at least five different logical fallacies in his arguments.”

“So… write back and tell him?”

“I’m planning on it, but I’m not sure who to address it to- I can’t remember if you ever mentioned it and he signed it in… not english. Does all you your family speak multiple languages?”

“Yes. And his name is Jacob.”

“Oh. I was almost expecting to to be odd, you know?”

“It  _ is _ a little odd, honestly- it means ‘supplanter’. Usurper.”

“I know. But people don’t always look at the origins of names when naming their kids. And Jacob’s fairly common, just because it’s in bible. Like Sarah, Mary, and Mathew.”

‘ _ Jacob chose that name himself.’ _ Aria thought, but she didn't voice it. The renaming was still… a fresh wound.

“So… Were you doing anything out here?”

“Getting lost.” Hermione said. “That map you gave we was very helpful, but it faded and didn’t cover which stairways go where.”

“It is an oddity that I don’t think was covered in the arithmancy.” Aria said.

“Honestly, though, I think that last stairway was  _ trying _ to kill me. It moved when I was getting on it, then right as I was getting off, and wasn’t exactly stable in-between.”

“That sounds annoying.”

“You have no idea.”

_ ‘Actually I think I’ve got a very good idea. And i think I know which staircase you’re talking about, but… whatever.’ _

“I hear your house is having an unofficial party in the common room.” Aria offered.

There was a brief flash of sadness in Hermione’s face, but then it vanished and she tsk-ed disapprovingly.

“Yes- those twins. Honestly I’m not sure they should be allowed to do that- but whenever I raise the issue I just get shouted down. And then there’s the  _ reason _ .”

“Wha-”

“Some idiot in our flying class nearly got himself  _ killed _ showing off. We weren’t supposed to be on the brooms at all but there was a fight and… ugh. Boys are just so  _ stupid _ sometimes. I don’t get it. Anyways, madam hooch  _ said _ we’d get expelled is we flew while she was going to the hospital wing, but instead he got put on the quidditch team. A first year! We’re not even allowed our own brooms for safety and he’s on the quidditch team? I heard there were over  _ fifty _ broken bones last year alone! And according to the records on the quidditch world cup there are so many injuries that each team has practically two backup teams! It’s ridiculous!”

“So… you're worried he’ll get hurt?”

“ _ And _ that the professors aren’t living up to their words. It’s a bit discouraging, honestly.” Hermione was talking again. Aria listened with half an ear.

_ ‘How does this girl breathe?’ _ She wondered to herself.

“I’m not sure how he’ll be playing, though, seeing as we’re not allowed our own brooms and I’ve been told the school brooms are rubbish.”

“Maybe they’ll bend the rules?”

Hermione tsked again. “You mean break them.”   
“WIth permission. And only a little.”

“Breaking the rules is breaking the rules.”

“And stealing is stealing, but taxing is legal.”

Both girls stared at each-other for a bit, trying to figure out how politics had come up.

“Do you know where the library is, by any chance?” Hermione asked.

Aria slipped her wand out. Holding it in her flat hand, she concentrated.

“Library.” She muttered.

The wand spun and pointed.

“We’re not supposed to use magic in the halls. Besides, just because the library is that was doesn't mean we can get to the library that way.”

“Touche.” Aria put her wand away, and they started the search for the library together.

Hermione did most of the talking.

*

__ _ Mom and Dad, _

_ I think I’ve made a friend or two. Other than the twins. How come I can hear your voices in my head even over here? It doesn’t make me miss you less. _

_ I’ve got some more placement testing tomorrow- more or less, since I’m ahead in some subjects (Cough, defence, cough). I’m a little worried about it. I’m not sure why. I guess I’m just now sure how it’ll work. Will they move me ahead because I’m better at defence or hold me back because I’m not as good at herbology or their history? Split the difference? Separate levels for each class, maybe… _

_ I haven’t nearly vaporized myself again, which is good. Ask Razo and Ammon if they put a laughing charm on some of my clothing, would you please? Every so often I just laugh. A lot. It’s kinda weirding me out, ‘cause the stuff I'm laughing at isn’t funny. Well, not that funny. And I guess it only happened twice… Still. _

_ I miss you all. Is Azeal talking yet? Let me know what his first word is when he does! _

__ _ Love,  _

__ _    Aria _

*

Aria’s hands were shaking a little as she slipped the vial back into her pocket. The hallway was delightfully chilly, with an icey floor and a few flakes of snow swirling up from the floor… and down. And up… and down. The ice was a little spiky and-

The door opened.

Aria took a breath.

“Hello, Miss carver. Are you ready for your defence test?” Flitwick asked.

_ ‘No.’ _ “Yep.”

“Alright.”

She followed her head of house into the defence professor’s office.

It smelled strongly of garlic.

“H-hello.” Professor Quirrel stuttered. “D-Do y-you h-have an-ny idea where-r you mmmmight be in-n the curicurriculum-m?”

“I was planning on taking the standard skill exam soon… I’m not sure if that translates over here but I could list off some of the things it tests, maybe?”

“That-t-t might-t be us-s-sefull.”

“Well- It’s a standardized test, with a written portion and a practical portion. You kinda have to take it in the U.S. if you want a job in the magical world… anyway, the written portion in the practice exams had things like lycanthrope identification- What?”

“At what age is this test usually taken, miss Carver?” Flitwick asked, looking unusually excited. 

“I don’t know. Fourteen, fifteen? Maybe sixteen if you’re late? I… Studied defense a lot.”

“What other things might be in this kind of test?”

“Counter-Jinxes, advanced shielding, dodging-”

“Dodging?”

“You can't block all the spells, sir. I found the patronus on a few practice tests but I never did well on that one… Basic mastery of a mundane weapon of choice-”

“Why a mundane weapon?”

“In case you’re caught in a non-magical bubble. That was also on some of them-”

“A what now?”

Aria blinked. “A… Non-magical buble. You know, a bubble that doesn't let magic happen inside of it?”

“Oh. A squibzone.”

“Several of the practice exams asked for how to make them, and how to dispel them- from the outside, of course. Although I think you caught actually take form down from within if you found the key-source… anyway. Disarming, summoning, wandless summoning of a light object-”

“Wandless summoning is standardised?” Flitwick asked.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“W-w-why w-w-would-d it-t-t be?”

“In case you’re disarmed.” Aria shrugged. “Aslo silent casting for the more basic shields and things… and the best course of action if you run into an angry dragon, on one of them.”

“What was your answer?” Flitwick asked, curious.

“Hope it didn’t see me and run. Depending on the dragon. Honestly the best choice with dragons is don’t get them angry, in my opinion, but… that’s not always an option.”

“I s-see.” Quirrel gave her a few dozen scenarios and Aria answered- though a couple of times her best answer was, once again, “I’d run and get the heck outta there!”- and a few questions. He asked her to perform a few spells, some of which she’d never heard of. Usually it was a ‘different name’-type error.

Some of them were just beyond her.

Some she knew the theory but couldn't perform, like the patronus.

“What would-d-d you d-do if you were locked in combat-t-t and your opponent threw the k-k-kk-kill-l-ling-ing c-c-ccurse at-t-t you?”

Flitwick started.

“Dodge and send back an overpowered stunner with a stinging hex on its tail.”

“C-c-lose-s quarters-s c-combat-t.”

“Dodge and stick a knife in his back.”

Flitwick stared at her.

“Or side.” She shrugged. “If he tried to kill me…”   
Finally, it was over. She ducked outside-

And the courage potion she’d drunk wore off.

She leaned against the wall, shaking, then straightened and walked away, trying to hide the quiver in her steps.

Something was  _ off _ about that teacher.

*

_ ‘Maybe arguments are just drawn to me.’ _ Aria thought blandly, not even trying to read anymore.  _ ‘Or maybe I’m drawn to them? Ugh. would they shut up already? I don’t even know what they’re arguing about any-’ _

“What would you know about it? You’re  _muggle-born_ . You didn’t grow up with this. There are a thousand and one little things that-”

“Oh, for Pete's sake, we’ve just got different  _ cultures _ . That doesn’t make me an idiot! Anyways, I knew all the answers on-”

“Book-smarts aren’t the same thing, Granger.”

Aria banged her head on the table.

_ ‘Nope. Still conscious.’ _  She tried to read her book again- just the first line

Just. The. First. Line.

‘I defense of Alth…’

“I still scored higher on  _ both _ parts of the charms exam than-”

‘...and more than a little…’

“I honestly don’t think  _ your _ type should be allowed.”

“Why? ‘Cause I actually stand up for myself?”

_ ‘That’s… not what you’re doing. Or what he meant.’ _

‘...very tight financial circumstances when he agreed to undertake...’

“Oh, I don’t know- Maybe because you’re destroying our traditions?”

‘Had Althalus been completely sober…’

“Oh, so it’s all about your traditions, is it? Your stupid feudal system? Well, keep it! I don't want anything to do with it!”

“Yes it’s about my traditions!”

‘...Asked a few more questions…’

Aria gripped the cover of the book dreadfully tight.

“Well, I don’t  _ know _ all your traditions, and  _ you _ don’t know mine!”   
“Exactly!”

Aria flipped a few pages.

“ _ That’s _ what these new classes are for, you realize- just a brief introduction so we can  _ understand- _ ”

“‘I happened upon a wolf, you see, and he was just about to jump on me and tear my throat out so that he could have me for supper.’” Aria suddenly read aloud.

The other two stopped their bickering and stared at her.

“‘Now, I’ve always sort of liked wolves- they sing so prettily- but I don't like them well enough to provide supper for them.’”

“Aria, what are you doing?” Hermione asked.

“Interrupting your argument.” She shrugged. “Works at home. Why don’t you two just have a rational discussion on the subject? I’m sure you’ll get much farther in understanding and a lot farther  _ away _ from an angry Madam Pince.” She flipped to the part where Eliar opened the door to nowhere and no-when and ‘Emmy’ freaked out.

“Well, what are your thoughts on the subject?” Draco asked. “You seemed interested enough when we first met.”

Aria set her book down on the table. “I think both cultures are fascinating and I want to understand both. But  _ right now _ I want to read this silly book about a silly thief and a goddess keeping the world from ending dramatically.”

She picked her book back up and hid firmly behind it.

“Oh… right…”

“You just moved here.”

“I’m reading!” Aria snapped.

“All I was saying,” Draco said at a more reasonable level, “Is that I don’t see the point in learning  _ your _ traditions if I’ll never follow them. They don’t effect me.”

“Except when you run into anyone who doesn’t know  _ your _ traditions in the hallway. I’d bet even Aria knows something about ‘my traditions’ as you called them. Like- Aria, what does your family do for Christmas?’

“Yule!” Draco said indignantly.

“Ari-”

“‘Well, now, when that army got here and started hearing stories about how much gold there was up here, the soldiers all decided that the army life didn’t really suit them anymore, so the whole army just up and quits so that’-”

“Okay, okay.” Hermione threw her hands up in defeat. “Finish your book.”

“They just deserted?” Draco asked, aghast. “An entire army?”

Aria skimmed a few lines till the ‘silly part’.

“‘Anyhow, the senate that operates the government of Deika was terribly disappointed with that army, so they sent a second army up here to chase down the first one and punish them for neglecting their duty.’”

“They didn’t!” Hermione exclaimed.

“Let me guess…” Draco drawled.

“Well, sir, that second army decided that they weren’t any stupider than the first one had been, so they hung up their swords and uniforms to look for gold, too.”

Hermione giggled.

“‘It gets better.’” Aria read- though she would have said it on her own as well. “‘The senate of the empire just couldn’t  _ believe _ that two whole armies could ignore their duty that way.’”

“Understandably.” Draco said. “Isn’t discipline taught to these imaginary armies?”

“‘-After all, the soldiers  _ were _ getting paid a whole copper penny every day, weren’t they?’”

Draco frowned.

“‘The senators made speeches at each-other till all their brains went to sleep, and  _ that’s  _  when they took their stupidity out to the very end of it’s leash by-’”

“Did they send  _ another _ army?” Hermione asked, trying to contain her laughter.

“Not if they were-”

“‘-By sending a  _ third _ army up here to find out what happened to the other two.”

“-At all intelligent.” Draco finished, shaking his head. “Why did they send the first army there, anyway?”

“Oh, they decided that God had made a mistake and put the gold in the wrong spot- but he’d meant to put in right where they were. A bit irreverent, but that’s why they sent to army.” She shrugged. “Now that you both agree that the senators of Deika were a bunch of idiots, why don’t you have a sensible conversation  _ without me _ ? At least till I finish the chapter?”

“Could you at least answer-”

“Half-A-PAGE, Hermione! Ten seconds uninterrupted, then ask!”

Hermione looked at her watch.

Aria went back to her book.

‘... and set gaily off to see the wonders of civilization for himself.’ Aria finished. She turned the page, marked it, and then set down the book.

“What was the question?”

“Nine… Ten. You know Christmas, right?”

“I recall it being mentioned when we went into town.”

“Yule.” Draco said imperiously. “It’s called Yule.”

“Grandmother Liza mentioned that a few times. Can’t say I’ve ever really celebrated either one- unless you say that by celebrating winter solstice it counts as yule.”

“What do you do for it?”

“Usually we all gather together -as much of the family as we can- and…” She frowned. How to explain… how to explain… particularly while staying in English. “Well, there’s games we play, and a gift- giving ceremony. There’s the counting of nines and the telling of tales. There’s races and snow games, kite-fights-”

“Kit fights? How can you fight with a kite?”

Aria was again lost for an explanation. Kites fights… just were. “it’s… a kind of game.” She settled on, after a little while. “There’s some friendly competitions and lots of food- I swear my aunts all compete  _ there _ . But my mom always wins.” She added loyally. “Except for a few places- My mom can’t make Kim chi very well. We kinda switch off. One day we do mostly Korean celebrations, the next we do mostly American-”

“But they celebrate Christmas  in America, don’t they?” Hermione asked, troubled.

Aria shrugged. “In some places. But not everywhere.”

“What about Halloween?”

“Samhain.” Draco added.

“Is that that one day that people dress up all silly and run around demanding candy?” Aria asked.

“Sounds about right.” Hermione said.

“Usually we just meditate all day or something. Once some of us went out dressed silly and got candy. It was… odd.” Aria had dressed as an arctic fox-person. Her cousins had teased her that she didn’t quite get that you were supposed to dress as something  _ scary _ .  _ ‘But honestly- a hypnotic creature that can lead you to your doom-  _ and _ survive subzero temperatures? That sounds scary to me!’ _

“So… You've got your own culture as well.”

“Heir Malfoy, I come from a strange blend of cultures so bizarre I’m not completely sure what came from where anymore.” Aria said with a slight bow. “I remember we celebrated Passover a few times… that was interesting… the day of light…”

“The day of light?” Hermione asked.

“Oh- right- you don't have that at all here, do you?” Aria frowned. “That’s sad. I guess I’ll have to live without it. What do you guys do for solstice?”

“It’s a day of meditation and self-rebirth. We reflect on what we have done well, poorly, and in between, and find ways we can improve as the light returns.” Draco said. “It’s a very special day. Magic… it’s so  _ strong _ then.”

“Huh.” Hermione said. “Well, I don’t know about Solstice exactly, but Christmas is generally celebrated with Family, like you said. There’s gift-giving, bible stories, depending on how religious the celebrators are, And usually special food that's not usually had the rest of the year.”

“Why is it that people celebrate with food so much?” Draco mused. “Birthday? Have a feast. Holiday- Feast some more. Successful quidditch match? What- are we all secretly gluttons simply trying to find excuses to indulge?”

“Maybe.” Aria shrugged.

Hermione laughed.

“What?” Draco asked.

“I have been wondering about that for years!”

_ ‘Well, they seem to be on friendlier terms.’ _ Aria thought. ‘ _ Now if I could just get my test results back… and stop all arguments by discussing celebrations. that would be nice.’  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Aria's reading is 'The Redemption of Althalus' but David and Leigh Eddings.  
> Also, as I was writing this I realized that earlier I forgot to have Quirrel stutter. So I fixed that, if you care.  
> I also did my best with the elves speech, but... I'm open to suggestions there. :)  
> Also, I again mean no disrespect with my description of different celebrations.  
> (And Kite-Fighting is TOTALLY a thing.)


End file.
